Now Showing Online! #BigMountain Film Featured at Tokyo Global Film Festival

By NaBahii Keediniihii, via @bsnorrell.blogspot.com, May 28, 2:33 PM

"Greetings All.

I hope your late Spring is going well.

The ONLY film festival so far that
selected the Big Mountain Film is Tokyo Liff Off Global Film Festival.

Big Mountain feature documentary will end streaming on June 1st which is night time Saturday in the U.S., 5/31.

https://liftoff.network/tokyo-lift-off-film-festival-2025/

Sorry that you have to purchase a Ticket (cost is $12), in order to Vote. GO DOWN TO THE 'FEATURES' Category. Find the title: "BIG MOUNTAIN LEGACY, LAST STORIES OF DÍNEH." More Votes = More Exposure about Big Mountain Legacy!!

Let's hope that other Film Fests judge to select this Big Mountain Legacy film.

What more can I say, this documentary is not about myself. Understand that I am only the MessenJah.

Thank you, again.

Sincerely,

Kat Bahe"

Watch the film trailer
https://vimeo.com/848932137

Big Mountain Legacy Film: SYNOPSIS / Re-enactments / A Dream of a Man
Director: Bahe (Naabaahii) Katenay (Keediniihii), October 2023 (75 minute featured documentary)

Background:

"In the 1970s, Dineh (Navajo) families around Big Mountain were notified that their communities would be uprooted and that they may never see their ancestral homelands ever again. Now 50 years later, less than 20 home sites remain and the once strong #resistance leaders like #PaulineWhitesinger, #HaastinNiizBegay, #JohnKatenay, and #RobertaBlackgoat (#KleeBenally's grandmother) have all passed on.

How should the future remember the legacies of such wise teachers? What gave their community the will to defy U.S.

Congressional Legislations that were nothing but anti-Indian which was forcing them to give up hundreds of years of cultural existence?

The Congress of the United States passed Public Law 93-531 in 1974 and it was signed by the President. It is an Executive Order, a declaration to exterminate, a declaration of war. The justification for this law was to “resolve” a supposed “land-dispute” among the Hopis and Dineh, and the lands were divided.

The 2023 Video Documentary:
The original impetus for resisting the federal mandate was the sacredness of the lands, ancestral ties and natural features which were dwelling places of Deities. The elder interviewees knew the future will not be the same way as they had lived and the same childhood experience. The video put aside much of the effective resistance against the most powerful, #capitalistic country in the world, instead the video presents stories about their ancestors’ teachings. A Dineh ritual existence which was basically daily living, ceremonies and nutrition. An indigenous atmosphere long before the Europeans’ arrival with its brutal conquest. The video narrowly touches on a 400-year history of cultural survival and maintaining identity. And how that history overlaps with so-called modern America.

One grandmother’s story become an intense chapter, and it is about her direct clan ancestry facing near annihilation as one little girl survives which resulted in re-establishing a Clan at Big Mountain.

"This story comes from a massacre site with two mass graves. Then stories about decades of intense state of fear and which lead into the US’s late 1800s war policy of random killing, starvation and captivity. The modern times the 1920s and 30s when these story tellers were born, a different state of fear had re-emerged, and then again at their elderhood in the late 1900s. All the stories in this documentary program are messages for the future because, as these elders have predicted, the lands maybe empty of indigenous culture which once thrived for centuries."

Continue reading at: Sheep Dog Nation Media
https://sheepdognationmediarockswisdom.blogspot.com/

Source:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/05/now-showing-online-big-mountain-film.html

#BigMountainResistance #Activism
#Dineh #Dineteh #Hopi #JohnMcCain #PeabodyCoal #BigCoal #PeabodyEnergy #Resistance #WaterIsLife #CorporateColonialism #HumanRights #LandDefenders #CulturalGenocide #EnvironmentalRacism #DirectAction #DefendTheSacred #IndigenousAction

'#SpacesOfException' #Resistance to the #FatTakers, from #NativeLands to #Palestine

"We might be the ones holding the knife -- but it is the state that is the one who is still killing us." Those are the words of #KleeBenally, in 'Spaces of Exception.'

by Brenda Norrell #CensoredNews
February 21, 2024

"In the Navajo language, there is no word for relocation, it means to disappear and never be seen again."

The film, 'Spaces of Exception,' now being shown around the world, begins on #PineRidge, with the history of the resistance to the 'fat takers,' and travels to the refugee camps of Palestine, before arriving at the land of #AkwesasneMohawk, and the words shared of true sovereignty.

"Then, there are the images of the #OilAndGas, the #fracking, and #coal mining on the #NavajoNation, where #Dine' say the true literacy once known, talking with the #NaturalWorld, is being lost. Now, there is the destruction of the burial and sacred places, as #asthma takes over lives.

"On #BlackMesa, before he passed, Klee championed his relatives resisting forced relocation brought by #PeabodyCoal.

"'Their greatest form of resistance is being who they are' 'The autonomy that we have is here.'"

"'Places of Exception,' begins with scenes from #WoundedKnee 1973, and Palestine refugee camps, and the words, 'Places defined by their historical and spiritual resistance.'

"'The buffalo owns us, we don't own the buffalo,' says #AlexWhitePlume, #OglalaLakota on Pine Ridge, sharing the importance of language, and the stories carried by the words, and the impacts of #genocide.

"'The buffalo shares the same story we share.'

"The film series, 'The Native and the Refugee' began on Pine Ridge with, 'We Love Being Lakota.' The latest film, 'Spaces of Exception,' concludes with the image of the flags at #OcetiSakowin #WaterProtectors Camp on #StandingRock.

"Among those in the series of films are #DebraWhitePlume, who talks about the 'Fat Takers,' and #OlowanSaraMartinez, Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, now in the Spirit World. Their bold stance as defenders of the water and people was manifest at the #RedWarriorCamp at Standing Rock, during the resistance to the #DakotaAccessPipeline in North Dakota.

"Spaces of Exception comes out of the long-term multimedia project 'The Native and the Refugee', profiling Native lands in the United States alongside #Palestinian refugee camps, and is directed by #MattPeterson and #MalekRasamny."

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/02/spaces-of-exception-resistance-to-fat.html

Spaces of Exception comes out of the long-term multimedia project The Native and the Refugee. The project has resulted in more than a dozen short films, a book, radio program, writings and numerous lectures and workshops. The Native and the Refugee project has been presented in Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, England, France, Guatemala, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Portugal, Syria, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, within the refugee camps and reservations were the film was shot, and at venues including cinemas, museums, and universities.

https://thenativeandtherefugee.com/

This hits home for me. I worked with Klee's family and provided #MutualAid when I was reporting on #BigMountainResistance years ago. My heart goes out to the Benally family and all those whose lives he touched. #RestInPower Klee. Link to fundraisers via #IndigenousAction at the end of the post.

Warrior #KleeBenally Never Surrendered: A Life of #RevolutionaryLove, Resounding '#RegainYourPower

by Brenda Norrell, #CensoredNews, January 2, 2024

"Our hearts are broken by the sudden passing of our friend Klee Benally. Reflecting on Klee's life, we remember the words of #CheGuevara that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.

"Klee never surrendered, he never surrendered to #capitalism, the media, or the forces of conformity that sought to change who he was.

"Ultimately, Klee taught us to regain our power, regardless of the road that led us to the present.

"#LouiseBenally, #Dine' of Big Mountain, said, 'Klee was our spokesman and leader. His departure only means we have to rise and carry on the work for justice for #nature and humanity. I will miss him Greatly and Honor him highly.'

"His roots come from Big Mountain, grandson of the late #RobertaBlackgoat.

"'He was an honorable young leader, well respected and moved with a lot of compassion. My nephew brother and my leader. A truly beautiful and amazing person who really lived up to his beliefs, and was not driven by money but by needs and concern, a real warrior.

"'He was our shining Star, he will continue to shine on us from the other side.

"'He always honored me, I will miss that,' Louise said.

"#MichelleCook, Dine', said, "We are deeply saddened and shocked by the news of the passing of our beloved warrior Klee Benally. We ask for prayers for his family during this time. For decades Klee led an uncompromising position, for the liberation of our peoples and lands developing and synthesizing an embodied praxis of #Indigenous-based political, economic, and social resistance against all forms of #SettlerColonialism that degrades people and the planet.

"Klee was our North Star guiding with his heart and mind. While some may not have shared his positions, no one can question his dedication, determination, and sheer drive to protect his people despite the risks and danger.

"He risked his life through forms of #CivilDisobedience and #DirectAction to protect our Dook’o’oosłiid, #HolyMountain, from development to maintain our ceremonial practices and way of life.

"Klee taught us all to be brave to fight against #genocide, the co-optation of our movements by the non-profit #IndustrialComplex. To be steadfast in what is right and wrong. To honor our ancient law and the sacred teachings of our ancestors and Grandmothers. His departure leaves a void in #DinehNation and #IndianCountry," Michelle said.

"Now with his absence from this material plane, we have no choice but to pick up his work, pick up the slack, carry on, and continue our journey as Dineh in a beautiful way.

"Klee's development and articulations of Indigenous peoples and archaism remain relevant for social movements within and outside of #TurtleIsland.

"He will forever remain in our hearts and minds as a guiding light and a growling voice, screaming freedom, for our earth and peoples. We love you Klee.

"Rest now our sacred warrior. Your work is done. We are so proud of the legacy you cultivated and left for this world. Journey well our sweet warrior until we meet again in the great Star Camp beyond," Michelle said.

"Klee passed to the Spirit World on Sunday, after being hospitalized.

"We send our sincere condolences to his family, his wife Princess, family Jones, Berta, Jeneda and Clayson, and all those who knew and loved him.

"From locking down in U.S. #BorderPatrol headquarters in Tucson, to chaining himself to equipment in defense of Sacred San Francisco Peaks, to battling the auctioneers of the sacred ceremonial items in Paris, and leading the #HaulNo movement to protect the #GrandCanyon region from #UraniumMining, to feeding the #unsheltered in Flagstaff, and standing strong for #Palestine, Klee's powerful actions remain a moving force to resound, and rivet us all, to struggle for a world without compromise.

"Klee recognized that the non-profit industry was designed to water down the resistance and turn the sacred movements into an ATM machine for a select few.

"Fly high, my sweet friend."

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/01/warrior-klee-benally-never-surrendered.html

https://www.indigenousaction.org/donations-accepted-for-the-family-of-klee-benally/