When Kyle Felter, the lead singer of I Don’t Konform sent out a demo album to Flemming Rasmussen, the Grammy Award-winner producer of Metallica, they never imagined themselves a few months later rehearsing with Rasmussen inside a hot hogan on a Navajo reservation before recording their debut album at the iconic Sweet Silence Studio in Denmark. While following I Don’t Konform’s fairy tale journey, our documentary REZ METAL, tells the larger compelling story of the heavy metal scene on Navajo reservations where many youths have grown disaffected as a result of endemic poverty and high rate of suicides.
Director Biography – Ashkan Soltani Stone
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Ashkan Soltani Stone is an Iranian-American director and producer known for Long Struggle (2005), White Manor (2012) and I Know You Well (2015). In his films, Soltani explores a wide range of topics such as affordable housing, immigrant workers, indigenous land rights, and subversive music. His films are known for their humanistic perspective on the social issue and the hardships of the impoverished, and underrepresented.