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Zahn McClarnon honored with Santa Fe International Film Festival’s Visionary Award

The Santa Fe International Film Festival honored Zahn McClarnon with its 2026 Visionary Award on Friday, October 16, at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe.

The festival had announced that the 6:30 p.m. presentation would be followed by a discussion between McClarnon and producer-director Chris Eyre, whose work includes Smoke Signals and Dark Winds, and then a screening of the Dark Winds episode McClarnon directed.

Photographs from the evening, shared with IND by the festival, show McClarnon with author George R.R. Martin and with Liesette Bailey, the festival’s executive director.

The honor places McClarnon among previous recipients including filmmaker Sterlin Harjo, whom the festival recognized in 2023, and director Catherine Hardwicke, whose award is recorded in its 2022 archive.

McClarnon, who has described himself as Lakota in an interview with Santa Fe Magazine, has worked in film and television for more than three decades. His roles include Hanzee Dent in Fargo, Akecheta in Westworld, Officer Mathias in Longmire and Officer Big in Reservation Dogs.

He is now closely associated with Dark Winds, AMC’s crime drama based on Tony Hillerman’s novels, in which he plays Navajo Tribal Police lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. According to AMC, McClarnon is an executive producer and made his television directorial debut during the show’s fourth season, which premiered in February 2026.

The series is set in the American Southwest and filmed around Santa Fe. AMC says its production involves Navajo cultural consultation and a largely Indigenous creative team; McClarnon has discussed the responsibility of portraying a character from a Nation different from his own.

In an earlier Santa Fe Magazine interview, he described how the industry had begun giving Indigenous filmmakers greater room to tell stories: “We have Native directors, we have Native writers, we have these rich, full stories to tell.”

By IND Entertainment