Santa Fe, New Mexico – September 7, 2023
The Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA) is pleased to present a special screening of Powerlands, the acclaimed environmental documentary, on October 3 at 6pm, and to host an audience Q&A with the director, Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso of the Navajo Nation. This special event is sponsored by 350 Santa Fe, a grassroots organization dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with support from the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust and CCA.
In Powerlands, Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso documents environmental-justice efforts by indigenous activists across three continents. In its review of the film, the Navajo-Hopi Observer said, “Powerlands highlights the displacement of indigenous peoples and the devastation of the environment by energy companies that exploit the land to the detriment of the Native people on them.”
Tso, who developed Powerlands over seven years, says, “From the beginning of this project, our commitment to the communities we worked with was to do everything we could to amplify their voices.” Her analysis of colonial dynamics between energy companies and Native peoples shows the devastation brought by energy development on Native lands, and but it also shows the resistance efforts Native peoples have mounted in response.
The public is invited to attend this event. No admission is being charged, although attendees are encouraged to make a $10 donation when they reserve their ticket on the CCA website.
About Powerlands
Released in 2022, Powerlands has screened internationally and won several festival awards, including the 2022 Rigoberta Menchú Grand Prize. Powerlands has already been an official selection in nearly 40 film festivals, including the Santa Fe International Film Festival.
For more about the film, its team, and its list of awards, visit powerlands.org.
About the Filmmaker
Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso is an award-winning queer Navajo filmmaker. She was a fellow with the Firelight Media Documentary Filmmaker Lab, and the 4th World Indigenous Media Lab. She started making films at the age of 9 through the Native youth media project Outta Your Backpack Media.
At the age of 13, she made the award-winning fiction film In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman, based in the true story of her great-great-great grandmother Yellow Woman, who lived through the Navajo Long Walk of 1864-1868. The film screened in over 90 film festivals internationally and won 11 awards. Ivey Camille continued to refine her filmmaking craft with a full scholarship to Idyllwild Arts Academy in California. She later returned home to work on films in her community of Navajo Nation.
At the age of 19, Ivey Camille began work on Powerlands, her first feature.
About 350 Santa Fe
350 Santa Fe is an all-volunteer organization formed in early 2020 to promote rapid and just reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through education and advocacy in Santa Fe and New Mexico.
350 Santa Fe is the local affiliate of 350.org, an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-centered renewable energy for all. It advocates a deeper transition, one that places energy justice at the heart of its values. The group places a high priority on moving forward into the world we want to see, leaving no one behind – and doing so with the urgency demanded by the climate crisis.
350 Santa Fe volunteers spend time with community and political leaders, teachers and students, and the general public. They spread the latest news regarding climate change (particularly in New Mexico), maintain a wiki for detailed climate information, and share how each person can make a difference through making changes individually and advocating for climate-friendly public policy.
Reaching out to young people is essential to 350 Santa Fe’s mission, since future generations have the greatest investment in New Mexico’s future energy/climate policies because they could to suffer the most from human-caused carbon emissions. Nurturing partnerships between students and local climate advocates are a high priority.
Partnership with CCA
Because the number of films about climate disaster and climate solution are increasing, 350 Santa Fe and CCA are partnering to bring important films to Santa Fe, and to host screenings that allow the public and local climate activists to meet the filmmakers. For news on upcoming environmental film screenings, sign up 350 Santa Fe announcements here.
