AMC’s ‘Dark Winds’ to Open ATX TV Festival

AMC and its upcoming drama Dark Winds will take the marquee spot on opening night of the ATX TV Festival.

The series, based on Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn & Chee mystery novels and set in the Navajo Nation, will have a premiere screening on June 2, the first day of the 11th ATX Festival. A panel discussion will follow the screening with creator and executive producer Graham Roland (Jack Ryan), showrunner/EP Vince Calandra (Castle Rock), director/EP Chris Eyre (Smoke Signals) and stars Zahn McClarnon (who also exec produces), Kiowa Gordon and Jessica Matten.

Dark Winds joins an ATX Festival lineup that will also feature reunions of the casts of Scrubs and Parenthood and the creative team behind Justified, and screenings and panels for Peacock’s Angelyne and Rutherford Falls, among others. Director Lesli Linka Glatter is receiving the festival’s ATX Award in Television Excellence.

Dark Winds is set in 1971 at a remote outpost in the Navajo Nation, near Monument Valley. It follows Lt. Joe Leaphorn (McClarnon, Fargo, Reservation Dogs) of the Tribal Police as he is besieged by a series of seemingly unrelated crimes. The closer he digs to the truth, the more he exposes the wounds of his past. He is joined on this journey by his new deputy, Jim Chee (Gordon, Roswell, New Mexico), who also has old scores to settle from his youth on the reservation.

Roland, Calandra, Eyre and McClarnon executive produce the series along with Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin, Robert Redford, Tina Elmo and Vince Gerardis.

Dark Winds premieres June 12 on AMC. A trailer for the series is below.