VisionLAFest Film Series presents Fire and Ice and Pilgrims and Tourists

Friday, December 4, 7pm
Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, California
FREE and open to the public
Special guest attendance: Director Christopher McLeod

Fire and Ice
In Part 1 of the 4-part documentary series Standing on Sacred Ground: from Ethiopia to Peru, indigenous customs protect biodiversity on sacred lands under pressure from religious conflicts and climate change. In the Gamo Highlands of Ethiopia, scientists confirm the benefits of traditional stewardship even as elders witness the decline of spiritual practices that have long protected trees, meadows and mountains. Tensions with evangelical Christians over a sacred meadow erupt into a riot. In the Peruvian Andes, the Qeros, on a pilgrimage to a revered glacier, are driven from their ritual site by intolerant Catholics. Qeros potato farmers face a more ominous foe: global warming is melting glaciers, their water source. Andes farmers, scientists and visiting Ethiopians struggle to adapt indigenous agriculture to the changing climate.
http://visionlafest.org/event/standing-on-sacred-ground-fire-and-ice/2015-12-04/

Pilgrims and Tourists
In Part 2 of the 4-part documentary series Standing on Sacred Ground: in the Russian Republic of Altai, traditional native people create their own mountain parks, to rein in tourism and resist a gas pipeline that would cut through a World Heritage Site. In Northern California, Winnemem Wintu girls grind herbs on a sacred medicine rock, as elders protest U.S. government plans to enlarge one of the West’s biggest dams and forever submerge this touchstone of a tribe. Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe), Oren Lyons (Onondaga), Satish Kumar and Barry Lopez provide insights on a growing global indigenous movement for human rights and environmental protection.
http://visionlafest.org/event/standing-on-sacred-ground-pilgrims-and-tourists/