{"id":132915,"date":"2026-06-12T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sunflower-theatre-to-screen-film-revisiting-cortez-teens-killing-and-legacy-25-years-later\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T03:00:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T09:00:52","slug":"update-sunflower-theatre-cancels-screening-revisiting-fred-martinezs-life-and-legacy-25-years-lat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-sunflower-theatre-cancels-screening-revisiting-fred-martinezs-life-and-legacy-25-years-lat\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Sunflower Theatre cancels screening revisiting Fred Martinez\u2019s life and legacy 25 years later"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The screening of award-winning film \u201cTwo Spirits\u201d for Tuesday at 7 p.m. is canceled upon request. It was planned to mark 25 years since the murder of Cortez teen Fred Martinez and highlight tragic impacts to the community and family. (Ann Marie Vanderveen\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: This story has been updated to reflect the cancellation of a planned Tuesday screening of \u201cTwo Spirits\u201d at the Sunflower Theatre in Cortez.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Sunflower Theatre in Cortez has canceled a planned Tuesday screening of documentary \u201cTwo Spirits\u201d marking the 25th anniversary of Fred Martinez\u2019s killing at the request of Martinez\u2019s family.<\/p>\n

Event host Gail Binkly said Martinez\u2019s mother said to organizers Friday morning she preferred the film not to be shown.<\/p>\n

The award-winning documentary was scheduled to be shown Tuesday, 25 years to the day since the killing of Martinez, who was a n\u00e1dleeh\u00ed youth, a male-bodied person who expresses a feminine nature or fluid gender roles.<\/p>\n

In Navajo culture, n\u00e1dleeh\u00ed individuals are deeply rooted in spiritual and cultural beliefs and historically held respected places within society for their unique perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evening is to commemorate the life of Fred Martinez, reminding people what happened here 25 years ago and the tragedy it was,\u201d Binkly, a KSJD Radio journalist, had said Thursday.<\/p>\n

Martinez was one of the youngest victims of a LGBTQ+ hate crime on record in modern history.<\/p>\n

\"Tickets
Tickets to the 7 p.m. Tuesday screening of \u201cTwo Spirits\u201d at Sunflower Theatre are free, although a donation of up to $12 is suggested. Attendees may register for free to reserve a seat. (Courtesy of Sunflower Theatre)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cTwo Spirits\u201c follows understandings of gender and identity in the Navajo culture, as well as how Martinez\u2019s story and killing has lasting significance to Cortez, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities.<\/p>\n

A judge in 2002 sentenced Shaun Murphy to 40 years in a Colorado prison a<\/a>fter the then-18-year-old beat Martinez to death with what was believed to be a rock. Murphy was released in September 2019 after serving 17 years.<\/a><\/p>\n

Binkly served as the Journal\u2019s<\/em> manager editor at the time of the 16-year-old\u2019s murder. Initially, many people did not know Martinez was Two-Spirit, she said.<\/p>\n

Binkly said coverage by Journal <\/em>reporters Aspen Emmett-McCarthy and others uncovered that aspect of his identity through interviews with classmates and community members.<\/p>\n

Emmett-McCarthy, who planned to attend Tuesday evening, first brought the murder to the public\u2019s attention after it was discovered June 16, 2001. She took the lead to report the case\u2019s subsequent court proceedings through its plea and sentencing phases.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of community discussion at the time. For anyone who hasn\u2019t seen the film, I think they\u2019d appreciate it,\u201d Binkly said. \u201cFred\u2019s mother is in it, and some people who were closely involved during the aftermath, and those coming to support the LGBTQ+ community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cortez native Russell Martin co-wrote and produced the 2009 film, along with director Lydia Nibley. Martin has written, produced and directed three documentaries and authored three novels and several nonfiction books, including international bestsellers \u201cBeethoven\u2019s Hair\u201d and \u201cPicasso\u2019s War.\u201d Martin, Emmett-McCarthy and a few others were special guests set to host a question-and-answer forum for any audience members with questions following the film.<\/p>\n

Craig Benally, who portrays Martinez in \u201cTwo Spirits,\u201d was a part of the panel. He is Din\u00e9, raised in Cortez and now resides in Mancos.<\/p>\n

Matt Keefauver, a retired local educator, was another panel member. He moved to Cortez a year after the killing but said the tragedy was a huge topic of discussion for children at school.<\/p>\n

awatson@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Showing of documentary \u2018Two Spirits\u2019 canceled Tuesday upon a family member\u2019s request<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":132916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[1060,168,1047,28,1097,1765,60,29,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-132915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-crime","tag-film","tag-headlines","tag-indigenous-people","tag-lgbt","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132915"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135377,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132915\/revisions\/135377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132915"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=132915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}