Standing on Sacred Ground Featuring the Winnemem Wintu

STANDING ON SACRED GROUND broadcasts on public television’s FNX First Nations Experience Network and Bay Area’s KCSM for Earth Day in April

Standing on Sacred Ground, the award-winning, four-part documentary series on indigenous struggles over sacred sites, seven years in-the-making, will be broadcast on PBS’s First Nations Experience network (FNX) and San Francisco Bay Area public television station KCSM beginning Sunday, April 17 through Friday, April 22 (Earth Day) (check local listings, broadcast schedule details below). The FNX network is comprised of 16 PBS stations that air in Indian Country across the United States.

Standing on Sacred Ground was produced by the Berkeley-based Sacred Land Film Project. The films share stories from eight indigenous communities around the globe resisting threats to lands they consider sacred in the growing movement to defend human rights, protect culture and preserve the environment. In the series, native people share ecological wisdom and spiritual reverence while they battle government megaprojects, New Age tourism, resource extraction, climate change and repression by dominant religions.

The series features northern California’s Winnemem Wintu Tribe, led by Chief Caleen Sisk, as they battle to stop the federal government from raising the height of Shasta Dam, which would flood the Winnemem out of their traditional homeland, for the second time. This would destroy many sacred places, burial grounds, historic village sites, and places used by the Winnemem for coming-of-age ceremonies every year.

Here are details on the four episodes, along with broadcast times:

In episode one, Pilgrims and Tourists, indigenous shamans of the Altai Republic of Russia and a northern California tribe find common ground resisting government projects: the raising of Shasta Dam and a Gazprom pipeline through a sacred burial area and World Heritage Site. In episode two, Profit and Loss, from Papua New Guinea to the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, native people fight the loss of land, water and health to mining and oil industries. In episode three, Fire and Ice, from the Gamo Highlands of Ethiopia to the Andes of Peru, indigenous communities protect their sacred lands from development, competing religions and climate change. In the final episode, Islands of Sanctuary, Aboriginal Australians and Native Hawaiians reclaim land and resist the erosion of culture and environment from government and military.

BROADCAST SCHEDULE DETAILS — FNX*:

Pilgrims and Tourists

Tuesday, April 19, 09:00 PM (ET)
Wednesday, April 20, 03:00 pm

Profit and Loss

Wednesday, April 20, 09:00 PM (ET)
Thursday, April 21, 03:00 PM (ET)

Fire and Ice

Thursday, April 21, 09:00 PM (ET)
Friday, April 22, 03:00 PM (ET)

Islands of Sanctuary

Friday, April 22, 09:00 PM (ET)
Saturday, April 23, 03:00 PM (ET)

*FNX airs nationally on 16 PBS stations throughout Indian Country. A program broadcast on FNX at 9pm Eastern Time airs in the Central Time Zone at 8pm, the Mountain Time Zone at 7pm and Pacific Time Zone at 6pm. For details visit: https://fnx.org/

BROADCAST SCHEDULE DETAILS — KCSM:

The Standing on Sacred Ground series will also be broadcast in the San Francisco Bay Area over four nights on KCSM-TV, starting with Pilgrims and Tourists on Sunday, April 17 at 10 PM (PT) and continuing the following three nights at 10 PM (PT).

For more information: StandingOnSacredGround.org/