Our Committee for Traditional Indian Land and Life (T.I.L.L.) was formed to give legal and media support to Native American groups defending their rights, and in particular, the Hopi Traditionals. I had heard of the Hopi and read that the name meant “peaceful people”. For a thousand years, they lived in peace and harmony on their high desert mesas in what is now northern Arizona. For myself, the Hopi approach to life came as a relief from the Cold War conflicts grabbing the headlines all through the 1960’s. The Hopi followed their ancient prophecy to protect Mother Earth by living in harmony with nature.
The Hopi elders were passionately committed to making their prophecy heard. My wife and our children and myself were extended a rare and special invitation to come to the traditional Hopi village of Hotevilla to start work on a film. For many years, we spent all school breaks and vacations, winter and summer, living among the Hopi, whom we found to be a gentle, generous, kind people.
On that high desert with freezing winters and blazing summers, the Hopi agricultural way of life had to be in harmony with nature. Their ceremonies marked the correct times for Spring planting and Fall harvest on the silt soil brought down by winter rains.
When corporations sought to drill for oil and dig for uranium and bring in electric power poles, Hopi elders saw that the dangers warned about in their prophecy were about to come true. So many elders risked their lives, throwing their bodies in front of the advancing bulldozers to protect Mother Earth.
At that time, science did not yet foresee that humanity’s increasing use of fossil fuels for an expanding population would soon reach the limit of the Earth’s capacity. But that was exactly what the Hopi prophecy said. I agreed with the elders that harmony with nature is life-or-death for humanity. The Hopi elders requested the presentation on film of their ancient prophecy of the disasters that would come from penetrating Mother Earth. I could not imagine any film project more important.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPI (9 minutes), our documentary short with James Kots (Kootshongsie) and his son Dennis, provides a historical sketch showing the peaceful simplicity of Hopi life. The government-sanctioned Tribal Council did not support the Traditional point of view and prevented further photography on the reservation.
The Hopi elders’ request for a film expressing their prophecy captured me totally, and I could not refuse a request to do my part in alerting humanity. With credit cards and help over the years from friends, family, crew people, and actors, to show the prophecy, we made the docudrama feature EARTH SPIRIT (83 minutes) and won the Neptune Award at the MoonDance International Film Festival:
http://earthspiritmovie.wordpress.com
The internet developed over those years, and video footage began appearing from all over the world showing what has been done to indigenous people by oil and mining. I felt such footage needed to be collected and shown as the very fulfillment of the Hopi prophecy.
So we completed our documentary/docudrama feature PROPHECY & POLLUTION (80 minutes).
http://prophecyandpollution.wordpress.com
PROPHECY & POLLUTION is a trilogy which starts with Part One, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPI (9 minutes), nearly fifty years ago in a quiet pueblo village where connecting with nature has provided a peaceful agricultural life.
In Part Two, EARTH SPIRIT (35 minutes, a condensation of the longer film) oil and mining development threaten the indigenous pueblo people, who raise protests, citing aboriginal prophecy that incursions into Mother Earth will bring disaster.
In the third and concluding part, THIRD WORLD INVESTMENT SEMINAR (36 minutes), prophecy is fulfilled as corporate capitalism does in fact develop oil and mining on lands of indigenous peoples all around the world, and the results are more protests, but also widespread war, disease, and devastation:
In Part Two, EARTH SPIRIT (35 minutes, a condensation of the longer film) oil and mining development threaten the indigenous pueblo people, who raise protests, citing aboriginal prophecy that incursions into Mother Earth will bring disaster.
In the third and concluding part, THIRD WORLD INVESTMENT SEMINAR (36 minutes), prophecy is fulfilled as corporate capitalism does in fact develop oil and mining on lands of indigenous peoples all around the world, and the results are more protests, but also widespread war, disease, and devastation:
PROPHECY & POLLUTION was an Official Selection by the GreenScreen Environmental Film Festival, the Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival. the SURGE International Film Festival, and the Third World International Film Festival.
The trailer and download for PROPHECY & POLLUTION are at
http://indieflix.com/film/prophecy-pollution-32759/
Trailer and download for EARTH SPIRIT:
-- Alan Gorg,filmmaker
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