Icarus Films will be teaming up with Bullfrog Films
on Dec. 17 for the DVD release of documentary filmmaker Christopher McLeod’s Standing
on Sacred Ground, a four-part film series on the
disconnect of modern society with their ancestors and the lack of ecological
wisdom that flows from that.
This globetrotting look at native cultures and their
connection to the world around them is broken into four separate sections, each
running 57 minutes.
The first in the series, Standing
on Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Tourists,
shares the common struggle of members of California’s disbanded Winnemen Wintu tribe
with the Altai peoples of Western Siberia in Russia, who are fighting for the
return of the rivers and the land in their respective areas to the their sacred
state.
The Shasta Dam is the central focus of the Winnemen
Wintu, while the Altais are dealing with both oil and natural gas pipelines and
the influx of tourism in this isolated area following the collapse of the
Soviet Union.
In the next segment, McLeod turns his focus on such
diverse areas as Papua New Guinea and Alberta, Canada in the presentation
titled Standing on Sacred Ground: Profit and Loss. Here the focus is on the Kurumbukari area and
that of Basamuk Bay in Papua New Guinea, where the Chinese have set up a large
nickel mining operation and have local villagers in opposition to their
indifference to both the customs of the region and the Chinese nasty habit of
dumping the trailings from their mining operation into Basamuk Bay and
polluting it in the process.
This environmental assault takes a different form in
the mining of Athabasca tar sands in remote areas of Alberta, Canada. The central focus here is on the impact such
operations have on the sacred Athabasca River and on fishing and wild life.
The third segment is titled Standing
on Sacred Ground: Fire and Ice,
which connects the peoples of the Gamo Highlands above the Rift Valley in the
southwest area of Ethiopia, to those of the Andes in Peru. At issue is the clash of cultures and how it
affects the traditional ways of agriculture and the general rhythm of life in
these remote areas.
Filmmaker Christopher McLeod finishes the four-part
series with Standing on Sacred Ground: Islands of Sanctuary. The clash of traditional lifestyles and sacred
lands with outside interests are examined with Aboriginal peoples in the
Northern Territory of Australia and the arrival of mining operations and the
U.S. Navy returning the small island of Kaho`olawe to its original state after
using it as a bombing range from the 1940s until 1994 … over 20,000 acres had
to be cleared of unexploded bombs costing nearly a half-billion dollars. Paradise restored.
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