UNC-TV to Air Cherokee Film

The award-winning film First Language: The Race to Save Cherokee, which documents the race to save the language of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, will air Thursday, April 9, at 10 p.m. on UNC-TV.

Produced by NC State’s North Carolina Language and Life Project, the documentary chronicles the tribe’s effort to save its ancient language. Of the tribe’s 13,000 members, only about 250 are native Cherokee speakers who grew up speaking Cherokee as their first language in the home.

The documentary was released last fall and was the award for the Best Public Service Film at the 2014 American Indian Film Festival.