The story of Ella, a fourteen year old girl and her journey to fulfill her dying Uncle’s wish: to kayak to the remote island of Klemtu and testify to protect their ancestral land from a oil pipeline. Ella knows she cannot make the trip alone so she gathers her eccentric family to take the adventure of a lifetime. Can the family work together to survive the beautiful but dangerous trip? Or will their past prevent them from protecting their future?
A 14-year-old girl readies for a kayak trip along the shores of the Great Bear rainforest with her family to protest oil tanker traffic.
Runtime: 36 minutes (CC)
Following film stick around for a conversation with Teri Red Owl, Executive Director of the Owens Valley Indian Water Commission and her staff on the current state of water rights in the Owens Valley.
Paya: The Water Story of the Paiute tells the untold story of America’s longest lived water war between the Owens Valley Paiute and the city of Los Angeles. Paya documents the history of the Owens Valley Paiute who constructed and managed sixty square miles of intricate irrigation systems for millennia, long before Los Angeles diverted the Owens River through the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 220 miles across the Mojave Desert. After the Indian War of 1863, surviving Paiute returned to the valley from the Eastern Sierra and White Mountains to find their ancient waterworks taken over by white settlers. Over 150-years later, the Paiute continue the fight to save their waterworks, which are remnant in the Owens Valley landscape.
Paya: The Water Story of the Paiute tells the untold story of America’s longest lived water war between the Owens Valley Paiute and the city of Los Angeles.
Saturday, April 18
Cost: Free
Location:
Steele Auditorium
Event Category:
Educational, Films