FILM

“WHO ARE MY PEOPLE?”

Who Are My People? from Robert Lundahl on Vimeo.

 

Join film Maker Robert Lundahl as he recalls his early trips to the desert as a child. One such memory helps pave the way to think of the desert the way he does, as a “oasis surrounded by a battleground.” It’s where the push for renewable energy threatens to wipe out Native American sacred sites that are thousands of years old.

Lundahl discovers there are hundreds geo-glyphs and petro-glyphs along the Colorado River and inland which are endangered due to utility scale energy development in the Mojave and Colorado deserts. And there are sacred lands and trails that have meaning to the cultures and tribes that are not protected and have been paved over even as they may be held in “trust” by the US Bureau of Land Management.

Native American elders tell us, we want power to the people, on rooftops and already degraded lands, not on pristine desert and Indian sacred sites. The LA Times indicates, we are at a “Flashpoint” between competing value-systems. Bodies have been exhumed on the site and the area is a long-term indigenous landscape.

“Who Are My People?” depicts how the world’s most powerful energy firms, like Solar Millennium, have met their match in a small group of Native American elders, and how this controversy continues to boil over in the hottest desert on the planet. The film takes us behind the scenes of two of the largest solar projects in the world, “fast tracked” by US renewable energy policies.

Who Are My People? features Preston J. Arrow-weed (Quechan/Kumeyaay), Executive Director of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, Don Alfredo Figueroa (Yaqui/Chemehuevi), Bill Powers, PE, Reverend Ron Van Fleet (Mojave Hereditary Chief), Chairman Anthony Pico (Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians), John Smith (Chemehuevi), Snapper Williams (Cahuilla), Phil Smith (Chemehuevi), Jesus Chuey Figueroa (Chemehuevi, Chichimeca), Jim Guerra (Mexica/Apache), Chairman Charles Wood, Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Victor Van Fleet (Mojave) and Bird Singers, James Andre, Phd., Botanist, Lowell John Bean, Phd., Ethnographer, John Boyd (Elwha Klallam/Arrow Lakes Band), Writer, and many others.

Stats: 4 years of production. 3000 hours of editing, thousands of pages of transcripts.

The RELEASE of the film for television and internet distribution is coming shortly. Please enjoy and share now, while it is available for streaming on this site.

About the filmmaker:

After making two television documentaries with Native communities in the Northwest, a global technology series, and an investigative documentary on Military Base Conversions, Robert Lundahl returned to his roots in Southern California, in 2010.

He travelled to a place he enjoyed as a child, the Oasis of Mara, and the 29 Palms Inn, then on to the Colorado Desert of Eastern California. Because of the immediate danger to Native sacred sites, (ironically) from renewable energy development, Lundahl was asked to help create awareness. Although Lundahl was not planning on making a documentary for broadcast at this time, he gathered interviews with tribal elders related to the traditions and practices on the land.

Robert Lundahl's documentary films can also be seen at Robert Lundahl & Associates sites http://planet-rla.com and http://image-rla.com.

More on the Backstory of the Film from Robert Lundahl:

"I had worked with top technology firms like Sun Microsystems in Silicon Valley in California. I produced a global technology series called Digital Journey: Stories From a Networked Planet that aired over 4000 times on US Public Television stations and TVO Canada. It aired in Europe on CNN, on CCTV and other networks. John Gage was the host of the program, as he was a well known figure in global technology circles. During this time I also worked with other clients like SAP, Ericsson and different firms. My job was to explain and translate technology concepts into stories for human beings. I had also made or was making various independent films on environmental and Native American issues.

"Sun Microsystems collapsed and was absorbed by Oracle in 2010-- and I lost a good client. Former colleagues John Gage and Bill Joy went to Kleiner Perkins as Partners to help manage the Green Growth Fund, along with former U.S. Vice President, Al Gore. Eric Schmidt also former Sun had been appointed CEO of Google. Google was Kleiner Perkins largest success to date. Google invested 250 million USD in the Ivanpah Solar plant, the first completed, the largest in the world, portrayed in the film.

"The Green Growth Fund has not performed as anticipated. Here is some background:
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/a-humbled-kleiner-perkins-adjusts-its-strategy/?smid=pl-share

"As the producer of Digital Journey I wrote much of John Gage’s material including creating a six part series on Green Tech. We introduced him to the topic and created positive public relations for the company by filming with Green thought leaders like Amory Lovins Ph.D and architect William McDonough.

"Following Sun’s demise, I departed the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley to make films with Native American communities in Washington State, then during the time of the economic collapse returned to the desert. There I met Sr. Alfredo Figueroa, one of the film’s subjects.

"My thoughts and my 'take-away' are as follows,

"1. All technologies are not created equal to the task and circumstances of their deployment. Ironic because my former colleagues like Google’s Eric Schmidt, technologists and venture capital partners at the world’s largest firms, misapplied tools to a contextual situation they did not understand.


"2. As former colleagues John Gage and Bill Joy went to Kleiner Perkins as partners to manage the Green Growth Fund, I went to the desert. I went to Blythe. I went to 29 Palms. To me this is personal, and I contend that it should indeed be personal to all of us in the desert, because individuals made these decisions, and so, quite frankly, individuals can make other decisions, as NRG CEO David Crane has already done.


"3. To pretend that large solar is anything other than bad engineering from the 'get go' is absurd. That is one reason the companies and the agencies are so sensitive and, in fact, so vulnerable. They know that they’ve got an 18 month window to make money and after that, new technologies or policies will change the game. Meanwhile the land is damaged, culture is destroyed. Also, the industry is not valid without subsidy in the US, as Solar Millennium found out.


"4. The idea that this build out would be entirely stopped, that facilities like Ocotillo Wind and perhaps others removed and restored is plausible, and I would argue inevitable. Existing Native American Laws provide the mechanisms. I think when we look at this film in 5 years it will be clearer.

"As filmmaker, as a journalist, following 4 years making this film, researching on the ground, these 4 points outline the next film I would make on the topic if there were to be a 'follow-up.'”

Robert Lundahl,
Producer
“Who Are My People?”
robert@studio-rla.com

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