“Standing on Sacred Ground”
October 7-14, 2021
The Jackson Hole Environmental Health Trust Film Series
Watch "Standing on Sacred Ground: Profit and Loss"
We will send you the streaming link on October 7, 2021. Then join us on October 14, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. MT for a live Q&A with a key participant in the film, economist, environmentalist, and indigenous peoples activist Winona LaDuke.
About “Standing on Sacred Ground: Profit and Loss”
From New Guinean rainforests to Canada’s tar sands, “Profit and Loss” exposes industrial threats to native peoples’ health, livelihood and cultural survival. In Papua New Guinea, a Chinese-government owned nickel mine has violently relocated villagers to a taboo sacred mountain, built a new pipeline and refinery on contested clan land, and is dumping mining waste into the sea. In Alberta, First Nations people suffer from rare cancers as their traditional hunting grounds are stripmined to unearth the world’s third-largest oil reserve. Indigenous people tell their own stories-and confront us with the ethical consequences of our culture of consumption.
About Producer and Director Christopher (Toby) McLeod
Toby McLeod circled the globe for five years filming the Standing on Sacred Ground series. McLeod founded the Sacred Land Film Project in 1984 to make high-impact documentary films relevant to indigenous communities and modern audiences. He produced and directed In the Light of Reverence (P.O.V., 2001) and other award-winning documentary films: The Four Corners: A National Sacrifice Area?, Downwind/Downstream, and NOVA: Poison in the Rockies. In 1990, he produced Voices of the Land as a 20-minute preview of Standing on Sacred Ground. In 1997, he completed A Thousand Years of Ceremony, a 40-minute profile of Winnemem Wintu healer Florence Jones and her efforts to protect Mount Shasta as a sacred site for the Wintu—a film made specifically as an archival film for the use of the Wintu community. Awards include the Council on Foundation’s Henry Hampton Award, the John de Graaf Environmental Filmmaking Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship for filmmaking and a Student Academy Award in 1983. His first film was The Cracking of Glen Canyon Damn—with Edward Abbey and Earth First! McLeod holds a master’s degree from U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. in American History from Yale.
About Winona LaDuke
What People Are Saying
“The striking parallels between the Chinese metallurgical development of Papua New Guinea and the Canadian self-destruction involved in the oil sands project are brought out well and poignantly in this film. Indigenous voices include workers on both projects, and multiple points of view are represented as communities struggle with the tensions between ‘trickle down wealth’ and environmental destruction.”
“Profit and Loss is a great documentary and could and should be used in anthropology classrooms, both for introductory courses and for advanced courses in environmental anthropology and development anthropology…It should disturb American and Western viewers, even if it cannot convince them to change their ways out of respect for the people who pay a high price for our lifestyle. Suitable for high school classes and college courses in cultural anthropology, development anthropology, environmental anthropology, anthropology of the corporation, anthropology of endangered cultures, and Oceanian and North American studies, as well as for general audiences.”
“The restoration of Indigenous environments and Indigenous cultures go hand in hand. The struggles are real. I recommend the Standing on Sacred Ground for tribal colleges and universities.”
Learn More About the Jackson Hole Environmental Trust Film Series
SUPPORTING EACH OTHER
EHT, a nonprofit 501 (c) 3 relies on donor support to fulfill its mission of educating the public with cutting edge research on environmental health hazards. Established in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in 2007, EHT works directly with communities, health and education professionals, and policymakers to understand and mitigate these hazards and educates about controllable environmental health risks and policy changes needed to reduce those risks. Environmental Health Trust works with scientists, policymakers, teachers, parents, and students to promote awareness of why and how to practice safe technology. Environmental Health Trust was created to promote health and prevent disease one person, one community, and one nation at a time.
