-submitted by Joan Gregory, Environmental Ministry
AWAKE, A Dream from Standing Rock
Friday, May 19, 2017, 7-9PM Eliot Hall
AWAKE, A Dream from Standing Rock, released on April 22, 2017, follows the dramatic rise of the historic #NODAPL native-led peaceful resistance at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, which captured the world’s attention as one of the biggest stories of 2016. Thousands of activists converged from around the country to stand in solidarity with the water protectors (activists) standing strong against the construction of the $3.7 billion Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), being built to carry fracked oil from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields through sovereign land and under the Missouri River, the water source for the Standing Rock reservation and 17 million people downstream.
A unique collaborative documentary created in three chapters, each helmed by a different filmmaker, the feature length film is directed by Academy Award nominated filmmaker and activist Josh Fox (Gasland, How To Let Go Of The World And Learn To Love Everything Climate Can’t Change), Academy Award nominated filmmaker James Spione (Silenced, Incident in New Baghdad) and indigenous filmmaker and Digital Smoke Signals founder Myron Dewey.
Each of the three sections of the film tells the story of Standing Rock in the unique perspective and style of the filmmaker who created it. The immersive documentary features emotional first-person accounts as well as gripping verité footage of militarized local police and private security teams confronting water protectors and journalists with rubber bullets, mace, tear gas, water hoses, and weaponized dogs. But the film also takes us behind the front lines to reveal the intimate day-to-day life of the camp community, as indigenous and non-indigenous protectors gather for peaceful prayer and song, and engage in daily tasks like clearing snow, raising tipis, distributing clothing donations, or building sleeping barracks for the many veterans who arrived to join the water protectors.
Standing Rock has awakened the nation and has forever changed the way we will fight for clean water, our environment and the future of our planet. A discussion will follow the film.
[ photos from various recent environmental events, including Climate March and Bears Ears event can be see on our Facebook page ]