River of Renewal
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Images
Stephen Most & Jack Kohler accepting Best Documentary Feature Award at American Indian Film Festival '08
Ron Reed and his brother Mike dipnetting at Ishi Pishi Falls
Dipnetting at Ishi Pishi Falls
Website
http://www.trxtrproductions.org
Topics
Environment: Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Environmental Activism, Forests, Genetics, Rivers, Soils
Human Development: Agriculture, Education, Energy, Fisheries
Human Rights: Civil Rights, Indigenous Rights
Information & Media: Communication, Culture, Freedom of Expression, Media, Science
Peace and Conflict: Conflict, Conflict Resolution, Peace
Politics: Activism, Codes of Conduct, Corruption & Transparency, Ethics & Value Systems, Geopolitics, Globalization, Governance
Project Geography
US: California, Oregon
Identity Niches
Caucasian, Indigenous, Native American
Budget
Raised to date: $182,305.00
Estimate to complete: $125,000.00
Total Estimated Budget: $307,305.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 02/01/2009
Status
Distribution
Media Type
Video
Project End Use
TV
Key Personnel
Jack KOHLER
Executive Producer, Producer, Editor, On Screen Narrator
Jack Kohler is a Hupa Tribal Member and is also part Yurok, & Karuk from Nothern California whose people reside along the Klamath and Trinity rivers. Jack is the Media Director for the UAIC. He has worked for the American Indian Film Institute for the past 5 summers mentoring students on reservations and rancherias in California on how to make films. He has been an independent producer for Native American Public Telecommunications since 2000. Jack graduated from Stanford University in 1985 with a Civil Engineering degree. He became a member of the Actor’s Equity Association in 1995 and became a SAG actor in 1997 with a role in the award winning HBO mini series "Grand Avenue." He was the lead in the “Outdoor Epic Drama - Tecumseh!” for 5 summers before he began producing films. He won the Eagle Spirit award from the American Indian Film Festival in 2006. He co-produced “California’s Lost Tribes”, which is currently still being aired on PBS and which received a CINE Award in 2006. The film “River of Renewal” was chosen to open the 2008 American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco and was named Best Feature Documentary of 2008. It will aire on PBS and the European market in 2009. Currently he is working on a feature film entitled the “Red Road to Nirvana” and in pre-production of a feature film entitled "The NAJGA BOYS".
Stephen Most
Script Writer & Producer
Most is a playwright and documentary storyteller. Many of his plays and documentary films have historical subjects. Among the documentaries that Most has written or on which he worked as consulting writer are four Academy Award nominees and two Emmy Award-winners. He also wrote the texts, audio voices, and video scripts for the permanent exhibit of the Washington State History Museum. His book River of Renewal, Myth and History in the Klamath Basin was co-published by the Oregon Historical Society Press and the University of Washington Press in September, 2006.
Steve Michelson
Executive Producer
A producer with more than thirty years' experience in the production and distribution of documentary films and videos, Michelson in recent years has become a leader in DVD publishing. Oil On Ice, a documentary that Michelson executive-produced and Stephen Most wrote, is the model for the distribution of River of Renewal. It has been broadcast on PBS stations nationwide and is being distributed as a web-linked DVD by Bullfrog Films and Warner Home Video.
Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)
The DVD will be released with a pikiawish/fixing-the-world tool kit and links to a website that will provide on-going information about the Klamath Basin. The website is currently at www.trxtrproductions.org. The contents of the DVD toolkit are ready for inclusion. These will consist of an interview on conflict resolution and consensus building with Bob Chadwick and his guide to this process, which was used to great effect in the Klamath Basin; a story by Karuk medicine man Charlie Thom about Coyote's journey, which culminates in Coyote fixing the world; and the full interview with Craig Tucker about citizen activism to influence corporations like PacifiCorp.
The film with its DVD toolkit, the website, and the book River of Renewal, Myth and History in the Klamath Basin by Stephen Most (University of Washington Press and Oregon Historical Society Press, 2006) will be distributed in conjunction with a national public awareness campaign next year. This will be coordinated by Friends of the River and the Hydropower Reform Coalition. National advocacy for the restoration of the Klamath Basin is expected to be needed to build support for an act of Congress that will pay for habitat restoration and dam removal. Currently, PacifiCorps is negotiating with the federal government for the removal of its hydroelectric dams on the Klamath.
Funders
| Name | Amount | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| LEF | $14,000.00 | 01/01/2006 | |
| Jewish Foundation of Nashville | $6,000.00 | 01/01/2005 | |
| Nu Lambda Trust | $19,000.00 | 05/01/2004 | |
| Native American Public Telecommunications | $131,000.00 | 01/01/2004 | |
| California Council of the Humanities | $16,000.00 | 01/01/2000 |
Location
PO Box 307
Rocklin, CA, 95677
Short Synopsis
River of Renewal tells the story of the crisis in the Klamath Basin where competing demands for water, food, and energy have pitted farmers, American Indians, and commercial fishermen against each other. Remarkably, the outcome may be the largest dam removal project in history and the restoration of a once vital river.
Description/Treatment
The Feature Documentary, River of Renewal examines the water and wildlife crisis in the Klamath Basin. The local communities that raise crops and cattle near the headwaters and catch salmon in the river and offshore have all suffered due to the lack of enough water to serve the needs of irrigation and fisheries alike.River of Renewal follows Jack Kohler, a self described ‘sidewalk Indian’, on a journey of self discovery in the land of his Hupa, Karuk and Yurok ancestors. Jack learns not only about the ancient cultural traditions of his people, but also their modern day struggles to defend tribal rights and the Klamath River.
Using interviews, archival sources, and contemporary cinematography, River of Renewal documents acts of protest and civil disobedience by Klamath Basin stakeholders whose ways of life are jeopardized by the decline of the region's wild salmon. These dramatic scenes include "protest fishing" by gillnetters in response to a federal ban on Indian fishing in 1978; the Bucket Brigade by Klamath Project farmers to protest a water cut-off complying with the Endangered Species Act in 2001; and guerrilla theater by tribal members who crashed Warren Buffett's shareholders' party in 2008 to protest the refusal of Pacificorp, a subsidiary of his company Berkshire Hathaway, to agree to the removal of Klamath River dams. Six months later, Pacificorp signed an agreement in principle with the Secretary of the Interior and the governors of California and Oregon to remove the four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River.
Accompanying this story of a resource conflict that led to a consensus for conservation are educational materials about conflict resolution, the ecology of wild salmon, and the tribes of the Klamath Basin.
Winner: Best Feature Documentary, American Indian Film Festival
Featured: Wild & Scenic Film Festival, Sonoma Environmental Film Festival, LA Skins Film Festival, Agua Caliente Film Festival
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