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Suzanne Shope is a versatile producer/filmmaker, artist, cultural history scholar, who has worked in film and media art for thirty years. Shope focuses on creating accurate Indigenous, gender and women's voices in film, especially in her home state of Montana. Shope is the CEO of Circle Arrow Productions, LLC, named after her great grandparents brand from Boulder, Montana. She holds an interdisciplinary doctorate in Native American studies, history and art education from the University of Montana and an M.A. from Alfred University, Alfred, NY. She began her video production as an art undergrad when there weren't departments dedicated to the medium in Montana. She and graduate students created an independent study credit solely for short video and video taped performance art. She went on to work as staff in Community Access Television for 3 years. Her first experience in the conception of Indie film was working with Richard Linklater on his first movie “Plow”. Shope continued to work in television production piloting live broadcasts for community TV and instructional videos for Very Special Arts Montana, other Indie films and organizations. Her recent cultural production position was with the development of a novel into a television series which is being considered by a major studio. Shope is a practicing artist and teacher in the arts, communication and interdisciplinary studies, an adjunct at Salish Kootenai College and has held assistant professor positions at other universities. She has been awarded the University of Montana Excellence Award, many grants as well as Artist residencies funded by the National Endowment for The Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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