Project Status

We spent the first half of 2000 editing In the Light of Reverence. In July we submitted the 72-minute fine-cut of the film to PBS and the PBS series P.O.V. (Point of View) for consideration for national broadcast in 2001. In January, 2001 we received word that the film has been accepted by POV at 72 minutes in length. On February 16th, on the eve of our world premiere, we were assigned a PBS national broadcast date of August 14, 2001. The film was broadcast in a 90-minute time slot with additional material before and after the film—an interview with the filmmakers “Behind the Lens” and “Talk Back” interviews with people who had seen the film.

A “special advance screening” of the film at the American Indian Film Festival in November 2000 resulted in an award for Best Documentary Feature, a wonderful development considering the fact that we hadn't completed the on-line and final sound mix of the film, and the jury was composed of Native Americans. After hearing from P.O.V. in January 2001 we moved ahead with final sound mix, and completed the film in April 2001. It then won a Jury Award at Telluride Mountainfilm.

In late 2001 we launched film distribution with Bullfrog Films (1-800-543-3764), continued to develop a Teacher's Guide, and laid the groundwork for a national campaign to protect sacred places with partners Seventh Generation Fund, Native American Rights Fund, Public Media Center, POV, Television Race Initiative, and others.

Throughout 2001 and 2002 we organized community screenings and public dialogues in northern California, the Four Corners area, the Black Hills, Washington, D.C. and around the country. Our San Francisco premiere on Saturday, February 17, 2001 at the Palace of Fine Arts was a great success, with more than 1,000 people turning out to see the film, in spite of a winter rain storm. Likewise, our screening on the Mall in Washington D.C. at the Hirshhorn Theater on March 23, 2001, sponsored by the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian and the Environmental Film Festival, was packed, and some frustrated people were turned away.

Our national PBS broadcast as part of the acclaimed documentary series P.O.V in August, 2001, attracted 3-4 million viewers, the largest audience for any P.O.V. show of the summer.

In October, 2001, we teamed up with the Natural Resource Law Center of the University of Colorado, the Seventh Generation Fund and EPA Region 8's Environmental Justice Program to host a Native American Sacred Lands Forum in Boulder and Denver. Over 100 tribal officials, native activists and federal land managers came together for two days of dialogue about how to improve protection of sacred landscapes, with a focus on education, consultation, land management policy, native leadership and legislation. The Boulder screening of In the Light of Reverence with native activist Winona LaDuke, author Terry Tempest Williams, law professor Charles Wilkinson, Hopi leaders Vernon Masayesva and Leonard Selestewa was packed with over 500 student, professors and community members.

In March, 2002, we participated in the creation of the Sacred Lands Protection Coalition, an extensive network of native traditional leaders and activists who are involved in the many ongoing struggles to protect sacred places. While we were in Washington D.C., we co-sponsored a second Native American Sacred Lands Forum at the Department of the Interior, which included a screening of In the Light of Reverence, a keynote speech by Vine Deloria, Jr. and a two-hour panel discussion. On the following day we screened the film at the Pentagon, where Native American staffers are working to increase concern for protection of sacred places on Defense Department lands.

A key achievement of our work with the new Sacred Lands Protection Coalition in D.C. was a series of oversight hearings by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on whether federal agencies are following existing laws and regulations regarding the protection of sacred places (they are not!). Speaking at these hearings in June and July 2002, were Vernon Masayesva (Hopi), Director of Black Mesa Trust, Caleen Sisk-Franco (Winnemem Wintu), spiritual leader of the Wintu, Malcolm Bowekaty, Governor of the Zuni Tribe, Mike Jackson, President of the Quechan Indian Nation, Scott Jones, cultural preservation officer for the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, Pemina Yellowbird (Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara) of the North Dakota Intertribal Reinternment Committee, Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne & Hodulgee Muscogee) of the Morning Star Institute, and Tex Hall (Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara), president of the National Congress of American Indians.

Distribution funding from the Ford Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Grousbeck Family Fund, and numerous individual donors have enabled us to plan and execute an extensive distribution campaign. In late 2002, we published a 48-page Teacher’s Guide and released a DVD version of the film with seven additional scenes, an extended interview with Lakota scholar Vine Deloria, Jr., a short film update on newly threatened sacred places like Zuni Salt Lake in New Mexico and Quechan Indian Pass in California, and two interviews with the filmmakers.

Ongoing documentation is central to our mission. Since we began filming in 1994, we have shot over 22,000 feet of 16mm film of verité scenes and landscapes, and conducted thirty betacam interviews, including (not a complete list):

In the western mountains we interviewed Wintu elder Florence Jones and her niece Caleen Sisk-Franco, Sharon Heywood, Supervisor of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, Mary Carpelan of the Shasta tribe, Floyd Buckskin of the Achumawi in the Medicine Lake Highlands, author Roweena Pattee Kryder, developer Jim Ayer, Forest Service regional superintendent Kathy Hammond, and Chris Peters and Jimmy James of the Yurok.

In the northern plains, we interviewed Superintendent Deb Liggett of Devils Tower National Monument, Andy Petefish of Tower Guides, William Perry Pendley of Mountain States Legal Foundation, Lakota elders Romanus Bear Stops, Johnson Holy Rock and Elaine Quiver along with Lakota scholar Vine Deloria.

In the southwest desert we interviewed Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, Hopi Cultural Preservation Officer, Vernon Masayesva, former Chairman of the Hopi Tribe (1990-94) and director of Black Mesa Trust, Jan Balsom, chief archaeologist at Grand Canyon National Park, Wendy Bustard, curator of the Chaco Canyon collection, and Hopi elders Thomas Banyacya and Dalton Taylor, whose eagle shrines have been destroyed by a gravel mining operation at Woodruff Butte, Arizona.

We spent much of 2002 editing our “outtakes” from these interviews, along with historic footage and other material, into an educational DVD that will supplement the 72 minute film. We are now working on a Sacred Land Reader for use with In the Light of Reverence.

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