Post by Okwes on Jun 6, 2006 9:05:25 GMT -5
TECHQUA IKACHI
Land and Life
Aboriginal Warning
95 minutes
Part One: history documentary AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPI
Part Two: prophecy docudrama EARTH SPIRIT
Official Selection: Dreamspeakers International Film Festival
Official Selection: Mumbai International Film Festival
Official Selection: Moondance International Film Festival
The film envisions social action from a spiritual consciousness.
In AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPI (9 minutes), a Hopi farmer tells of his travels from reservation to government school to hard times to war and back home to appreciation of traditional life close to nature. The philosophy calls on people to follow the natural way.
In EARTH SPIRIT (85 minutes) indigenous people resist the plans of oil and mining interests to exploit and pollute their land.. They voice a prophecy warning against violating the earth. A troubled city youth is drawn back home to defend the land of his ancestors.
Similar confrontations are being faced by indigenous peoples all around the world.
Among sites of recent protest demonstrations are Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, Florida, the Dakotas, Alaska, Canada, Burma, Columbia,, Indonesia, Tibet, the Arctic, Mexico, Madagascar, the Philippines, Russia, Chile, Brazil, Guatemala, Australia, Thailand, India, and thousands of demonstrations in China. Many others are not reported. Civil war over oil has broken out in Sudan, Nigeria, and Pakistan, mass murder in Ethiopa..
There is no organizational link between these peoples. What they have in common is the despoiling of their lands for the profit of others.
For more information, please see these websites: www.thehopiway.com
www.blackmesais.org
www.wsdp.org www.earthfirst.org
www.greenpeace.org
www.unpo.org
www.treatycouncil.org.
DEDICATION
TECHQUA IKACHI: Aboriginal Warning is dedicated to Hopi elders James Kots, Helen Kots, David Monongye, on Nora Monongye, Thomas Banyacya, Carolyn Tawangyama, Ralph Tawangyama, and Dan Katchongva, The Hopi people knew how to be civil to others long before modern so-called civilization, which brought money and modern things but no peace. The Hopi had lived their quiet life in a difficult desert for a thousand years in peace.
Those elders requested a film be made about the Hopi prophecy. We shot the footage in our documentary short AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPI, but the reservation police stopped us from filming the protest demonstrations there.. As in our film EARTH SPIRIT, there were elders risking their lives. Those elders are gone now, and that docudrama mentions neither the Hopi nor the name Native American nor the name American Indian. As in modern expressionistic drama, as well as in classical drama of many cultures, the story and characters are representative--in this case, representative of similar stories and characters from many peoples around the world. Yet EARTH SPIRIT came into being because of those Hopi elders’ request and plays like a docudrama from Hopi-land and speaks their prophecy. The protests demonstrations by the Hopi and Dineh continue to this day, as does the blackout on photography there.
The film is also dedicated to the memory of Jose Andrews, who lived just long enough to give us the beautiful prayer to close the film.
Origin of AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPi and EARTH SPIRIT
In the late 1960s veterans of the civil rights movement organized the Committee for Traditional Indian Land and Life in Los Angeles with the purpose of aiding American Indian peoples struggling for self-determination. One conflict continuing to this day is the resistance in northern Arizona by Hopi and Dineh traditionals against mining of coal on their sacred Black Mesa.
The center of this opposition was and is the traditional Hopi village of Hotevilla, founded in 1906 after a clash between Hopi traditionals and those "progressives" who decided to give up their traditions, convert to Christianity, and seek the material benefits of Western technology and industry. The traditionals were obliged to separate to preserve the old ways.
Many indigenous peoples believe taking oil and minerals is a transgression on Mother Earth.
In 1969 the federal government brought in contractors to provide the first electric power to the village of Hotevilla. Power poles were trucked in, and heavy equipment arrived to clear the way for the installation. At this point a group of Hopi elders arrived on the scene to block the work. These old men lay down in the path of the bulldozers, ready to sacrifice their lives if necessary to prevent electric power from coming to their village.
This scene of confrontation was a moment of truth for those in the civil rights movement. It was also the source of the idea for the film EARTH SPIRIT. To capitalist and communist alike, belief in the value of material progress had always been fundamental. Why would anyone resist progress How could anyone criticize progress?
What concerned the Hopi elders was the price to be paid.. In the traditional economy there was no money because it was not needed. Now the Hopi must find ways to get money. There are few jobs on the reservation other than working for the government or working for corporations extracting coal, oil, and uranium out of the land. The only source of money for many is to go on welfare.
There would also be a price more costly than mere money. Like many indigenous peoples, the Hopi believe extractions from Mother Earth will lead to disaster. Their prophecy, like many others, foretells doom for those who forsake a natural way of life.
During this period we shot our short AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPI (available on indieflix.com) presenting the life and philosophy of a traditional. This black-and-white 16mm documentary was a finalist in the National Short Film Competition and was also selected as Best of Filmex at the Los Angeles International Film Exposition.
The EARTH SPIRIT story
The tale of the Spirit of Sacred Mesa is told by an elder. Some don't believe, but the facts do support the old man..
He says an ancient unseen spirit haunts mesa country in the high desert of the Southwest. Mother Earth is being raped by oil drilling and mineral mining. Mesa people believe this earth spirit is unhappy at what has been done to this land and its people According to ancient prophecy, the Spirit of Sacred Mesa might erupt in a rage that could destroy this world.
Tela, daughter of the late lamented leader of the mesa people, escaped from the harsh desert where she grew up.
She left to seek a middle-class life in Los Angeles,. There she fell in love with a caucasian stockbroker. But after their rushed romance., marriage, and a quick baby, her new husband Tom cracks under career pressure. loses his job, and they all three wind up back out on the desert. Only Tela cannot abide this return to primitive living. The marriage breaks up, and she returns to L.A., taking their son, Jesse, who finds himself excited by the city action but alienated by the violence and the racism there. Fatherless, clueless, he grows into a teenage punk rock rebel into drugs and petty crime and always in trouble. The time comes when Tela has had enough of Jesse. She takes him back out to his father on the desert.
A way out of their financial crunch appears to Tela in the form of an offer by a mining company for mineral rights in the family land. She can take the money but finds herself fighting against Tom and her family and half of her people.
Jesse, too, is fighting his father over discipline and ranch work in the desert heat.
Will these three continue to battle while their land is desecrated?
Death and destruction will prove necessary to resolve these conflicts and appease the Spirit of Sacred Mesa.
To obtain a free mp4 video trailer for the movie EARTH SPIRIT, simply send a request to
alankentgorg@yahoo.com
Land and Life
Aboriginal Warning
95 minutes
Part One: history documentary AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPI
Part Two: prophecy docudrama EARTH SPIRIT
Official Selection: Dreamspeakers International Film Festival
Official Selection: Mumbai International Film Festival
Official Selection: Moondance International Film Festival
The film envisions social action from a spiritual consciousness.
In AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPI (9 minutes), a Hopi farmer tells of his travels from reservation to government school to hard times to war and back home to appreciation of traditional life close to nature. The philosophy calls on people to follow the natural way.
In EARTH SPIRIT (85 minutes) indigenous people resist the plans of oil and mining interests to exploit and pollute their land.. They voice a prophecy warning against violating the earth. A troubled city youth is drawn back home to defend the land of his ancestors.
Similar confrontations are being faced by indigenous peoples all around the world.
Among sites of recent protest demonstrations are Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, Florida, the Dakotas, Alaska, Canada, Burma, Columbia,, Indonesia, Tibet, the Arctic, Mexico, Madagascar, the Philippines, Russia, Chile, Brazil, Guatemala, Australia, Thailand, India, and thousands of demonstrations in China. Many others are not reported. Civil war over oil has broken out in Sudan, Nigeria, and Pakistan, mass murder in Ethiopa..
There is no organizational link between these peoples. What they have in common is the despoiling of their lands for the profit of others.
For more information, please see these websites: www.thehopiway.com
www.blackmesais.org
www.wsdp.org www.earthfirst.org
www.greenpeace.org
www.unpo.org
www.treatycouncil.org.
DEDICATION
TECHQUA IKACHI: Aboriginal Warning is dedicated to Hopi elders James Kots, Helen Kots, David Monongye, on Nora Monongye, Thomas Banyacya, Carolyn Tawangyama, Ralph Tawangyama, and Dan Katchongva, The Hopi people knew how to be civil to others long before modern so-called civilization, which brought money and modern things but no peace. The Hopi had lived their quiet life in a difficult desert for a thousand years in peace.
Those elders requested a film be made about the Hopi prophecy. We shot the footage in our documentary short AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPI, but the reservation police stopped us from filming the protest demonstrations there.. As in our film EARTH SPIRIT, there were elders risking their lives. Those elders are gone now, and that docudrama mentions neither the Hopi nor the name Native American nor the name American Indian. As in modern expressionistic drama, as well as in classical drama of many cultures, the story and characters are representative--in this case, representative of similar stories and characters from many peoples around the world. Yet EARTH SPIRIT came into being because of those Hopi elders’ request and plays like a docudrama from Hopi-land and speaks their prophecy. The protests demonstrations by the Hopi and Dineh continue to this day, as does the blackout on photography there.
The film is also dedicated to the memory of Jose Andrews, who lived just long enough to give us the beautiful prayer to close the film.
Origin of AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPi and EARTH SPIRIT
In the late 1960s veterans of the civil rights movement organized the Committee for Traditional Indian Land and Life in Los Angeles with the purpose of aiding American Indian peoples struggling for self-determination. One conflict continuing to this day is the resistance in northern Arizona by Hopi and Dineh traditionals against mining of coal on their sacred Black Mesa.
The center of this opposition was and is the traditional Hopi village of Hotevilla, founded in 1906 after a clash between Hopi traditionals and those "progressives" who decided to give up their traditions, convert to Christianity, and seek the material benefits of Western technology and industry. The traditionals were obliged to separate to preserve the old ways.
Many indigenous peoples believe taking oil and minerals is a transgression on Mother Earth.
In 1969 the federal government brought in contractors to provide the first electric power to the village of Hotevilla. Power poles were trucked in, and heavy equipment arrived to clear the way for the installation. At this point a group of Hopi elders arrived on the scene to block the work. These old men lay down in the path of the bulldozers, ready to sacrifice their lives if necessary to prevent electric power from coming to their village.
This scene of confrontation was a moment of truth for those in the civil rights movement. It was also the source of the idea for the film EARTH SPIRIT. To capitalist and communist alike, belief in the value of material progress had always been fundamental. Why would anyone resist progress How could anyone criticize progress?
What concerned the Hopi elders was the price to be paid.. In the traditional economy there was no money because it was not needed. Now the Hopi must find ways to get money. There are few jobs on the reservation other than working for the government or working for corporations extracting coal, oil, and uranium out of the land. The only source of money for many is to go on welfare.
There would also be a price more costly than mere money. Like many indigenous peoples, the Hopi believe extractions from Mother Earth will lead to disaster. Their prophecy, like many others, foretells doom for those who forsake a natural way of life.
During this period we shot our short AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPI (available on indieflix.com) presenting the life and philosophy of a traditional. This black-and-white 16mm documentary was a finalist in the National Short Film Competition and was also selected as Best of Filmex at the Los Angeles International Film Exposition.
The EARTH SPIRIT story
The tale of the Spirit of Sacred Mesa is told by an elder. Some don't believe, but the facts do support the old man..
He says an ancient unseen spirit haunts mesa country in the high desert of the Southwest. Mother Earth is being raped by oil drilling and mineral mining. Mesa people believe this earth spirit is unhappy at what has been done to this land and its people According to ancient prophecy, the Spirit of Sacred Mesa might erupt in a rage that could destroy this world.
Tela, daughter of the late lamented leader of the mesa people, escaped from the harsh desert where she grew up.
She left to seek a middle-class life in Los Angeles,. There she fell in love with a caucasian stockbroker. But after their rushed romance., marriage, and a quick baby, her new husband Tom cracks under career pressure. loses his job, and they all three wind up back out on the desert. Only Tela cannot abide this return to primitive living. The marriage breaks up, and she returns to L.A., taking their son, Jesse, who finds himself excited by the city action but alienated by the violence and the racism there. Fatherless, clueless, he grows into a teenage punk rock rebel into drugs and petty crime and always in trouble. The time comes when Tela has had enough of Jesse. She takes him back out to his father on the desert.
A way out of their financial crunch appears to Tela in the form of an offer by a mining company for mineral rights in the family land. She can take the money but finds herself fighting against Tom and her family and half of her people.
Jesse, too, is fighting his father over discipline and ranch work in the desert heat.
Will these three continue to battle while their land is desecrated?
Death and destruction will prove necessary to resolve these conflicts and appease the Spirit of Sacred Mesa.
To obtain a free mp4 video trailer for the movie EARTH SPIRIT, simply send a request to
alankentgorg@yahoo.com