Screening of Film on Navajo Battle Against Uranium Mining Set for Indian Market Weekend in Santa Fe

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“HOMELAND” AT NATIVE CINEMA SHOWCASE SPOTLIGHTS NAVAJO BATTLE AGAINST URANIUM MINING

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr., the Honorable Stewart Undall, Owen Lopez of the McCune Charitable Foundation and Activists Mitchell and Rita Capitan to Attend Benefit Screening on Indian Market Weekend

Santa Fe, NM  – A Navajo couple’s against-all-odds struggle to stop uranium mining in their hometown of Crownpoint, NM, takes center stage at the Native Cinema Showcase with the benefit screening of the award-winning documentary Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action on Saturday, August 20th at 4:00 PM at the Center for Contemporary Arts, 1050 Old Pecos Trail. Homeland, produced by the Katahdin Foundation , is the first feature documentary to take an in-depth look at the environmental hazards that threaten nearly all 317 Indian reservations across the U.S., and at the handful of Native Americans – including Navajo activists Mitchell and Rita Capitan – who are leading the charge in these new “Indian Wars.” With the support of their communities, these leaders are actively rejecting the devastating affronts of powerful energy companies in order to protect the environment for all Americans.

The screening will benefit the Capitans’ organization, Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM). A reception will follow. In attendance will be Navajo Nation President, the Honorable Joe Shirley, Jr.; former Congressman and Secretary of the Interior, the Honorable Stewart Udall; Owen Lopez of the McCune Charitable Foundation; acclaimed Native American director Chris Eyre (Smoke Signals); and the Capitans – as well as Homeland’s director Roberta Grossman, producer Lisa B. Thomas and the film’s director of photography, Santa Fe resident Dyanna Taylor.

In addition to the August 20th screening and fundraiser, Homeland will also screen on August 21st at 6:30 pm at the Center for Contemporary Arts. For tickets to either event, please call 505-262-1862 or call Katahdin Productions at 323-337-1177.

For the Capitans, the fight against uranium mining is especially personal. They, along with thousands on the Navajo Nation, have endured the painful effects of post-World War II uranium mining. During the height of the Cold War, Navajo men were sent into the mines to work without any warnings or protective gear. As a result, more than 1,000 have died from cancer; birth defects on the reservation are five times the national average; and bone cancer is five times the national rate. In 1994, when the Capitans learned that despite this shameful legacy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) had approved a permit to mine uranium just miles from their home, they decided to act.

“We’d never been involved in politics or anything like that before,” says Rita. “But with grassroots organizing and endless legal challenges, we’ve been able to block the new mine for nearly a decade.” In fact, earlier this year, after an aggressive campaign by ENDAUM, the Navajo Nation Tribal Council passed a bill that bans uranium mining and processing in Navajo Indian Country.

In addition to the Capitan’s story, Homeland presents three other dramatic, first-person narratives set against the backdrop of some of the country’s most spectacular landscapes. Gail Small, an attorney from the Northern Cheyenne nation in Montana, is spearheading the fight to protect the Cheyenne homeland from 75,000 proposed methane gas wells that threaten to make much of the reservation unsuitable for farming or ranching. Evon Peter is the former chief of an isolated Alaska community of Gwich’in people, who are working against current efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And Barry Dana, former chief of the Penobscot nation in Maine, is battling powerful paper companies and their allies in state government to curtail the companies’ dumping of toxic wastewater into the Penobscot River, on which his people have depended for food and medicinal plants for 10,000 years.

Produced by the Katahdin Foundation, Homeland premiered earlier this year at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary and the Fund for Santa Barbara’s Social Justice Award. The film is accompanied by an extensive outreach campaign that includes collaborations with a network of Native American organizations, social justice and human rights groups and environmental organizations. The campaign is coordinated by Active Voice, an organization that puts socially relevant films to work for personal and institutional change in communities, workplaces and campuses.

The Katahdin Foundation, whose motto is "changing the world one frame at a time," also enlisted the aid of several leading Native American environmental activists in the production of Homeland. Those involved include Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabeg) of the Honor the Earth Foundation and Tom Goldtooth (Diné/Dakota) from the Indigenous Environmental Network.

The Katahdin Foundation is a not-for-profit, 501 (c) (3) corporation based in Berkeley, California. Katahdin’s mission is to tell compelling stories often ignored by the mainstream media – stories that inform, enlighten, entertain and inspire. Katahdin is dedicated to creating high quality documentary films, ancillary educational materials and media projects that open minds, provoke dialogue and encourage positive social change – outstanding works that touch the soul as they sound a call to action.

Contact: Carla Lopez, 505-988-3552
amorgraciela@yahoo.com
www.katahdin.org