Release Information
12/09/2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Robert Lundahl Film Maker
Solana Beach, CA 92075
415.205.3481, [email protected]
Jay Cravath, PhD
Cultural Director
Chemehuevi Indian Tribe
760.858.1115
[email protected]
FILM ON THE IMPACTS OF LARGE RENEWABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT TO NATIVE CULTURAL RESOURCES PREMIERES IN INDIAN COUNTRY
Chemehuevi Screening Brings Conflicts Over Sacred Lands Home. Wednesday, January 15, 2014, at 5 p.m. Cultural Center. 1991 Palo Verde Dr. , Havasu Lake, CA 92363
Chemehuevi Elder Phil Smith gets the last word in Robert Lundahl’s new feature-length documentary film, “Who Are My People?” Referring to an industry sponsored bus-trip junket to a proposed solar project site, “This is how we keep losing everything.”
Smith is a litigant in a lawsuit, which has received much attention in international press, filed on behalf of La Cuna de Aztlán Sacred Sites Protection Circle v. the BLM over “Failure to Consult.” The BLM is required to consult with Indian tribes and groups in accordance with the NHPA National Historic Places Act of 1966.
The “film rolls” as the drama plays out in front of the lens. Lundahl, who in addition to film making, helped write a main legal complaint and engaged with the national press on behalf of La Cuna, has a perspective that is knowledgeable and unique. He is one of the first to fly over the area to film and observe the ancient geoglyphs outside Blythe, California.
Mr. Lundahl has produced four documentary feature films on the environment and Native American communities for Public Television.
He also created a series on technology, Digital Journey: Stories from a Networked Planet, that aired over 4000 times in the US and Canada. Lundahl has made over 300 films and media communications products for clients.
In the case of “Who Are My People?’ Events unfolding were sensitive to the agencies and applicants concerned.
The Bureau of Land Management scoping meeting for the Rio Mesa Solar Plant outside Blythe, California went up in smoke for the BLM, applicant Brightsource, and related subcontractors and agencies, on film.
Time and time again Native elders, including Smith, Chemehuevi Cultural Monitor, Sr. Alfredo Figueroa, his son Jesus, and others stand up to declare concerns and articulate potentially irresolvable conflicts.
BLM representative Lynette Elser declares the “government to government consultation process required by Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 began for the Rio Mesa Project in November 2011.
But questioned by Chemehuevi Elder and Tribal Member Phil Smith, Elser could not recall which tribes had been involved in discussions. She said BLM Associate Field Manager Holly Roberts would also not be able to recall.
Ft. Mohave Tribal Member and Mohave Indian Nation Traditional Chief, The Reverend Ronald Van Fleet, stated that he did not know of any requests for consultation at the time of the 9/15/2012 meeting, asking, “Who are we to trust here?”
The BLM is obligated by the federal government’s “Trust Relationship” (holding lands and cultural resources in trust) with Tribes, to follow the rules they made.
Lundahl’s film, “Who Are My People?” is a story about how The United States makes energy.
Mr. Lundahl’s work has been honored by film festivals around the world and has won numerous awards, including the Emmy®.
####
Las Vegas and Los Angeles screenings of Who are My People? are being planned now. Stay tuned for more information.
NEVADA PREMIERE! Las Vegas screening of “Who Are My People? is scheduled for August 13, 7:00 pm at the Flamingo Library’s beautiful state of the art screening facility, during the National Clean Energy Expo.
To purchase DVDs of Who Are My People, please see the information visit: http://whoaremypeople.com/purchase-dvds-for-home-use/ (Home Use), http://whoaremypeople.com/purchase-dvds-for-libraries-schools/ (Libraries & Schools)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Judy Bundorf
Friends of Searchlight Desert and Mountains
http://www.savesearchlightdesert.org/
702.682.9963
[email protected]
Robert Lundahl
Filmmaker
http://whoaremypeople.com
415.205.3481
[email protected]
NEVADA PREMIERE OF “WHO ARE MY PEOPLE?” SLATED FOR AUGUST 13, 7:00 PM., FLAMINGO LIBRARY MAIN STAGE AUDITORIUM.
EMMY® Award winning filmmaker Robert Lundahl takes a hard look at U.S. energy policy and its effects on desert ecosystems, Native American tribes and the communities of the West.
The Bureau of Land Management scoping meeting for the Rio Mesa Solar Plant outside Blythe, California likely caused heartburn for the BLM, applicant Brightsource, and related subcontractors and agencies. Time and time again Native elders stood up to declare concerns and articulate potentially unresolvable conflicts of values, goals and process that have the potential to devastate Obama Administration hopes to build large solar across the deserts of California and the West.
In a surreal scene from the film, “Who Are My People?” holding its Nevada Premiere, BLM (Bureau of Land Management) officials flub questions, and acknowledge they can’t remember which tribes they consulted with, a requirement of the National Historic Places Act of 1966, as applicants Brightsource and Chevron seek to justify placing the 2 billion dollar USD Rio Mesa Solar facility on lands held sacred by the Mojave people.
Mojave elder Reverend Ron Van Fleet responds, “We said no, when is it going to get through your head, do we have to fine you for a billion dollars for violating one of our cremation sites, or 10 billion dollars… all you care about is the money, maybe 10 billion dollars you would understand.”
U.C. Riverside Botanist, James Andre, Ph.D., Director of the Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), takes it a step further. “You’ve basically done in the entire ecosystem at that scale.”
Lundahl’s film decimates the BLM, whose practices seem to be in shambles, by showing what is at stake. Giant geoglyphs, or Earth drawings, which appear in only two places on the planet (the other being Peru’s Nazca Lines), and which are thousands of years old, visible from space, and which were made popular by author Erich Von Daniken in the book Chariots of the Gods, face the bulldozer.
“Who Are My People?,” explores the effects of large-scale solar energy developments on Native American life and traditional landscapes, as the Obama Administration seeks to build massive energy facilities, both Solar and Wind, across the Western desert regions, “development that will forever change the character and landscape of the West across at least six states, including Nevada,” says Lundahl.
Who Are My People? delivers stunning, never seen before aerial photography of scores of such geoglyphs, outside Blythe, California, where companies like Solar Millennium, Next Era, and Solar Reserve, want to turn gold, in the form of hundreds of millions of dollars of “up front” cash grants from the ARRA stimulus program, into more gold, in the form of over 250 BLM leases in California alone, originally instigated, the film’s experts say, by investment bankers Goldman Sachs, operating as a land speculator.
Lundahl, a self-described environmentalist, savages the Obama Administration’s green energy policies, and the Nevada Premiere of his new film at the Flamingo Library’s beautiful, state of the art facility, is timed to coincide with opening festivities of the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas the same day, hosted by Nevada’s Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and featuring keynotes by Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell (whose department oversees the BLM), and Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz.
“Ultimately it’s simple,” Lundahl says, “you can’t destroy things to ‘go green,” and that includes the traditional practices and life-ways of Native American communities who were here long before the United States was even an idea, and the environment and traditional, indigenous landscapes which support those communities. You can’t have ‘Green’ without social justice.”
Who Are My People? screens Tuesday, August 13, 7:00 PM, Flamingo Library Main Auditorium, 1401 Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, Nevada. Doors open at 6:30, the film screens at 7:00 and the event concludes at 9:00 PM. Tickets are $7.50 at the door and are available in advance, on-line, for $7.00 at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/432635.
A conversation with the filmmaker and with Native elders will take place following the screening.
#####
