In 2016, at Standing Rock, the Native Nations lead a peaceful movement of resistance against the 3.8 billion dollar Dakota Access Pipeline. The Native youth unite the Native Nations for the first time in 150 years and rise up in spiritual solidarity to resist the pipeline and protect Mother Earth. The rallying cry of ‘Water is Life’ speaks to Native and non Native allies across the world as the Dakota Access Pipeline unlawfully bulldozes the Native peoples’ treaty land, destroying sacred Native burial and ceremonial sites. The pipeline threatens the water, the land, the animals–the very health of Mother Earth. Over the course of many months, the Dakota Access Pipeline escalates their response to the Native peoples’ peaceful resistance by unleashing tear gas, attack dogs, pepper spray, water canons and concussion grenades. The courageous, spiritual, peaceful resistance led by the Native people awakens the world to the Environmental Movement and to the Native Rights Movement. Standing Rock becomes a global historic event which illuminates the centuries long horrific treatment of the Native people as well as the urgent need to protect Mother Earth.
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Reclamation: The Rise at Standing Rock
23-minutes
Screening day / time
Reclamation: The Rise at Standing Rock
Reclamation: The Rise at Standing Rock
Filmmaker Notes:
Standing Rock was transformative for me and many others who stood in solidarity with the Native Nations. When I arrived at Standing Rock in Spring to witness a small camp of Native leaders and their allies declaring opposition to the lawless 3.8 billion-dollar Dakota Access Pipeline, I did not yet know that my experience and participation there would be a cornerstone of my life’s work. In my projects I have tried to discuss issues of politics, Justice, race, and Human Rights. Coming to Standing Rock, I was humbled by the conviction of the Water Protectors and their spiritual resistance. Their conviction and Spirit felt familiar from my experiences on other front lines but shown entirely unique unto itself and, over the months, as the pipeline would unleash an unrelenting militarized violence, the peaceful resistance would be an education in how to come in a good way to the protection of Mother Earth. As I filmed the young Native leaders and their spiritual elders from late Spring through the Winter, the camp swelled to over 12,000 allies Native and non-Native from all over the world. It is my heartfelt belief that honoring the sacred, in the way the Indigenous Youth of Standing Rock have taught us, will save the Earth from environmental destruction and ourselves from spiritual failure. In the community of prayer, ceremonies, direct actions of peaceful resistance on the front lines, in the bright voices for justice around the wake of the big fire at Standing Rock, I found a home and a family.
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