Films That Move
Unleash hope, inspire change with our free environmental film series
Join us to experience an exciting collaboration between the Redford Center, a leading US nonprofit dedicated to environmental impact filmmaking, and Imagine5, an international impact media foundation. Through this partnership, we are proud to present an enhanced Redford Center film offering, Films That Move – a free screening series that is packed with inspiring content to move you and your community into action.
Subscribers to The Redford Center’s newsletter can enjoy two virtual film screenings per month, each available for a week, featuring solutions-based environmental stories from grassroots activists, frontline communities, and talented filmmakers worldwide. Subscribers will also receive timely calls to action and exclusive invitations to in-person film screenings in the Bay Area, providing opportunities to network, connect with the community, and engage with filmmakers.
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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 Japanese Americans who were brought here from their West Coast homes and incarcerated in a World War II concentration camp.
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Combined with archival gems and careful research to narrate this epic story of the American West. It begins before colonizers came to the valley and then shows how the US Army and settlers took over the Valley; how the Los Angeles Aqueduct siphoned the Valley dry; how incarcerated Japanese Americans made the land green again; how Patsiata / Owens Lake became a huge health hazard and how this Valley now bears the pain of these stories and the consequences of losing water to diversion.
Manzanar is the name of the former concentration camp that was constructed where an orchard community had thrived before the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) bought it out. In a David and Goliath fight, Japanese Americans living in Los Angeles and Native Americans and ranchers from the Valley form a coalition that stops construction of a massive LADWP solar facility across the Valley from the historic site. The film offers a hopeful message of how communities can come together to overcome histories of oppression and halt further development and monetization of a land.
Available to Screen 5/23/23 – 5/31/23 at 12:00 AM PT
Meet Our Sponsor: Imagine 5
Imagine5 tells powerful stories about sustainable initiatives through their website, social media and newsletter. By elevating the work of those working to make an impact, bringing awareness to environmental causes and sharing how we can come to action, Imagine5 inspires and empowers our community. Imagine5 partners with future-focused organizations working to make a positive impact on our planet and elevates them through storytelling, financial support and more, in order to accelerate the change they’re already making.
