Aiming to educate viewers on cinematic images of Native Americans, the fifth annual Native American Film Series will show the first film of its fall series at 7 tonight in room B102 of Wells Hall.

Vincent Ward’s “Map of the Human Heart” was chosen as the first screening of the series because of the variety of issues it covers. The themed series focuses on getting a good look at the “variety of social conditions among the peoples of the Western Arctic,” according to the series’ Web site.

“A lot of interesting issues are coming out of the North recently - coming from Canada and the Arctic,” said series organizer Jefferson Faye, an American Thought & Language professor. “So, since we have never had a theme having to do with the Native people from the north, we chose this theme for the fall series.”

Billy August’s “Smilla’s Sense of Snow” will be shown Nov. 15.

Mindy Morgan will introduce “Map of the Human Heart.” Morgan is a pre-doctoral fellow in the American Indian Studies Program and in anthropology. Patricia Patrick will lead discussions during the showing of “Smilla’s Sense of Snow.”

“‘Smilla’s Sense of Snow’ is about a woman who is mixed race,” said Patrick, the academic enrichment coordinator for the Office of Supportive Services. “This film deals with issues of how Native people can and do move back and forth between cultures.”

Each film is accompanied by a 10-minute introduction, a set of viewing discussion and response questions and a 10- to 20-minute discussion after the film to analyze the cultures, beliefs and experiences of the indigenous peoples living north of the Arctic Circle.

A lot of outside influences help with the selection of the films included in the series, Faye said.

“We get ideas and suggestions from a lot of other faculty members working with native subjects,” Faye said. “We then screen the films to see if there are any appropriate subjects to focus our discussions about.”

Admission to the film series is free for students. But the four cooperative organizations sponsoring the series - the American Indian Faculty and Staff Association, the Department of American Thought & Language, the American Indian Studies Program and the Native American Institute - urge viewers to bring canned food donations for the MSU Student Food Bank.

The Native American Film Series plans to show four films during the spring semester.

For more information on the film series, check out www.msu.edu/~aisp/nafs.html.