Saturday, October 26, 2024

Yintah

Documentaries can often help us recognize reality.  "Yintah" (2024) is an example.  Climate change is easy to argue for, but not so easy to enact.  

This film covers over 10 years of activity and admittedly gives a particular perspective.  The natives of Wet'suwet'en in British Columbia,  wanted to stop a pipeline construction that would have negative impacts on their lifestyle.  The RCMP does the bidding of the corporate bosses and the government and after much wrangling they succeeded.  We see confrontations between natives and authority (RCMP, pipeline staff).  Eventually we see some of the natives being manhandled and arrested.

This film is an answer to the abuse they have received.

Here are some of the people responsible. 

Michael Toledano was a director, producer and cinematographer.  His parents were combat partisans in WWII.  His background was as a  journalist for the Jewish press.   he felt Jews should be concerned about indigenous rights.  He got embedded with the Wet'suwet'en people and subsequently was arrested by the RCMP

Molly Wickham (likes to be called Skeyda') was one of the chief spokespeople.  She was a residential survival.  She has also spoken in support of Palestine feeling oppressed people need to support each other.  She is shown confronting the RCMP.

Freda Huson (also known as Howihkot) was the other main spokesperson telling the RCMP they were trespassing on unceded land.  She has spoken on behalf of indigenous rights at a United Nations agency.

Original music was written by Olivier Alary who was born in France and now based in Montreal.  He has been involved with music albums by Bjork among others.  He has 22 composing credits.

Ryan Mullins was the editor.  He has 17 credits as editor, 4 for cinematographer and 4 as a director.  

Naomi Klein in one of her books pointed out it would be advantageous for environmentalists to align with native groups wanting to protect their land.  See http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2018/05/naomi-klein-writes-another-insightful.html 

 The pipeline and fossil fuels have played a role in my being able to retire and spend more time on blogs.   See my post from 2015 explaining.struggling with a lot of corporate monsters.  See http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2015/11/when-public-that-means-you-are-lied-to.html  

It is one battle between the environment and corporate interests.  Available on Netflix.

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