Standing on Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Tourists

Christopher McLeod | 2013 | 57 min.

2014 Official Selection

Award Winner: 2014 John de Graaf Environmental Filmmaking Award

Indigenous communities around the world stand in the way of government megaprojects as they defend their sacred places. In the Russian Republic of Altai, activists and shamans create nature parks to rein in tourism and resist a natural gas pipeline through a World Heritage Site. In northern California, Winnemem Wintu girls grind herbs on a sacred medicine rock as tribal elders fight U.S. government plans to enlarge Shasta Dam, which would forever submerge this touchstone of the tribe.