RAPID CITY - Rapid City filmmaker Chris Eyre has been awarded a $50,000 USA Fellowship grant for artistic excellence from United States Artists.

Eyre, the director of such films as "Smoke Signals" and "Skins," will be honored along with 49 other fellowship recipients Saturday, Nov. 17, at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles.

The USA Fellowship program provides support for living artists in the following fields: architecture and design, crafts and traditional arts, dance, literature, media arts, music, theater and visual arts.

Eyre, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribe of Oklahoma, attended New York University's film school. In addition to "Smoke Signals" and "Skins," he directed the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian signature film, "A Thousand Roads," and "Edge of America." Eyre was awarded a Directors Guild award for "Edge of America."