Dewi Sungai Marquis is an Indigenous film director and editor based in Louisville, Colorado, on the traditional territory of 48 contemporary tribal nations including the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute, and current home to members of approximately 100 tribal nations. She was born to a young Indonesian birth mother and descends from Orang Banjar, Baduy, Dayak, and Sunda to whom she attributes her Indigenous lineage, and an English birth father to whom she attributes her light-skinned privilege. She was adopted as an infant by white American parents who renamed her “Amy” and raised her in white suburbia, with multiple journeys back to Southeast Asia for her adoptive father’s work. She and her life+creative partner, Jason Houston, created their production company eight16 creative with the goal to center Indigenous voices, challenge dominant settler storytelling and colonial worldviews, and create art that inspires viewers to heal their relationships with the land and each other. They are currently in production on an art-forward body of work that explores Indigeneity lost, then reclaimed, as Dewi and other transracial adoptees break from their white communities and seek ancestral knowledge in an urgent call to address the climate crisis facing humanity. This project is the focus of her current fellowship at Cine Fe. Dewi is a member of A-Doc, BGDM, and Kin Theory, and has collaborated with a wide range of partners, including ProPublica and Exposure Labs.
