In partnership with Colorado State University’s Native American Cultural Center and Asian Pacific American Cultural Center, ACT Human Rights Film Festival presents award-winning documentary Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust (Ann Kaneko, 52 minutes, USA, 2021) at The Lyric on November 16, 2022 at 6:30 p.m. The screening and film discussion are free and open to the public. Watch the trailer.
About the film: An inspired and poetic portrait of a place and its people, MANZANAR, DIVERTED: WHEN WATER BECOMES DUST follows intergenerational women from three communities who defend their land, their history and their culture from the insatiable thirst of Los Angeles. In this fresh retelling of the LA water story, Native Americans, Japanese-American WWII incarcerees and environmentalists form an unexpected alliance to preserve Payahuunadü (Owens Valley), “the land of flowing water.” Featuring breathtaking photography and immersive soundscapes, the film recounts more than 150 years of history, showing how this distant valley is inextricably tied to the city of Los Angeles. It reveals the forced removals of two peoples–the Nüümü (Paiute) and the Newe (Shoshone) who were marched out of the Valley in the 1860s by the US Army and the Japanese Americans who were brought here from their West Coast homes and incarcerated in a World War II concentration camp. Water lured outsiders in and continues to fuel the greed which has sucked this once lush place dry.
Panel to follow, co-moderated by Native American Cultural Center Director Ty Smith and Asian Pacific American Cultural Center Director JoAnn Cornell.
Eric Ishiwata, Associate Professor, Ethnic Studies
Ron Hall, Tribal Transportation Program Manager, Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, North Dakota State University
Also, make sure to check out Trees, Water & People’s world premiere of short documentary Homelands on November 15, 2022.
