November 24th – 30th, 2014

At Groundswell Films we create powerful art, in-person experiences, well-told stories and amplify it all through digital and social media. We’re funny at times, but we are persistent, and engage deeply in the advocacy around our films.
If you believe in the power of art to transform lives and propel social change, then join us in building Groundswell! Here’s how we measure our impact.

A groundbreaking billion dollar result

Our film, The Return of Navajo Boy, empowered a Navajo-led legal campaign to catch a corporate contaminator responsible for 50 abandoned uranium mines on Navajo lands. The Navajo Nation won the largest environmental legal settlement in history – a billion dollar payout from Kerr McGee. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now used our film to illustrate the Navajo situation on her show titled A Slow Motion Genocide.
A powerful response to our new film, Food Patriots
After opening the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 3 to rave reviews, our new project, Food Patriots (see trailer) is sparking groundswells and changing lives. Through humor and humility Food Patriots inspires audiences to change by 10% the way they eat, buy and educate the next generation about food. See what people are saying! “The movie was a perfect balance of comedy, story, and critique. We particularly appreciated the positive spin on it all,” Sara Stewart RN MSN, Executive Director Unity Gardens Inc., South Bend, IN
CNN Headlines for The Greens

Headlines again! CNN sought more authentic Chicago stories for it’s new Chicagoland website. CNN selected Groundswell Associate Producer Sam Spitz’s new short film, The Greens. Here are two stories about the participants in The Greens, revealing real people behind stereotypes of gangs and violence.
Join us in creating art and media that transforms lives.

Your donation will help our artists create more films, reach underserved communities with events, and train people there to tell stories in ways that make a difference. Groundswell is a non-profit organization and all donations are tax deductible.
Thanks for helping Groundswell produce films and results.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Amdur Spitz and Jeff Spitz
Co-Founders, Groundswell Educational Films

At Groundswell Films we create powerful art, in-person experiences, well-told stories and amplify it all through digital and social media. We’re funny at times, but we are persistent, and engage deeply in the advocacy around our films.
If you believe in the power of art to transform lives and propel social change, then join us in building Groundswell! Here’s how we measure our impact.

A groundbreaking billion dollar result

Our film, The Return of Navajo Boy, empowered a Navajo-led legal campaign to catch a corporate contaminator responsible for 50 abandoned uranium mines on Navajo lands. The Navajo Nation won the largest environmental legal settlement in history – a billion dollar payout from Kerr McGee. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now used our film to illustrate the Navajo situation on her show titled A Slow Motion Genocide.
A powerful response to our new film, Food Patriots
After opening the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 3 to rave reviews, our new project, Food Patriots (see trailer) is sparking groundswells and changing lives. Through humor and humility Food Patriots inspires audiences to change by 10% the way they eat, buy and educate the next generation about food. See what people are saying! “The movie was a perfect balance of comedy, story, and critique. We particularly appreciated the positive spin on it all,” Sara Stewart RN MSN, Executive Director Unity Gardens Inc., South Bend, IN
CNN Headlines for The Greens

Headlines again! CNN sought more authentic Chicago stories for it’s new Chicagoland website. CNN selected Groundswell Associate Producer Sam Spitz’s new short film, The Greens. Here are two stories about the participants in The Greens, revealing real people behind stereotypes of gangs and violence.
Join us in creating art and media that transforms lives.

Your donation will help our artists create more films, reach underserved communities with events, and train people there to tell stories in ways that make a difference. Groundswell is a non-profit organization and all donations are tax deductible.
Thanks for helping Groundswell produce films and results.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Amdur Spitz and Jeff Spitz
Co-Founders, Groundswell Educational Films

Sydney Levine at Indiewire.com turns to Democracy Now and Amy Goodman’s story “A Slow Genocide” and asks the question, “When are films political?”

Recently, Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman published this story about the controversy over re-opening uranium mines on Navajo lands. The documentary, The Return of Navajo Boy, has been credited with bringing the issue of uranium contamination from post WWII mining into the public eye.

Read more here…

Amy Goodman reports on Uranium Mining with The Return of Navajo Boy as a resource:

Let’s turn to another clip from the film, The Return of Navajo Boy, the award-winning documentary produced by Jeff Spitz and Bennie Klain about the Cly family, Navajo who have suffered health problems due to environmental contamination. Here, we hear more about the impact of uranium mining on the Navajo community, on the Diné people.

To listen to the interview or to read the transcript…

Free screening: Tuesday, April 15, 2014, 6PM

Dine College, Tsaile, AZ
Sub-Activity Room

Guest Speakers:
Elsie M. Begay John W. Cly

An official selection of the Sundance Film Festival and PBS, “The Return of Navajo Boy” introduces audiences to Navajo culture, Hollywood stereotypes, and one Navajo grandmother’s incredible struggle for justice.
A Q&A with Elsie, John and Perry Charley will take place after the film.

For questions about this event, contact Perry Charley: phcharley@dinecollege.edu

Sponsored by:
Tsaile Campus Math & Science
AISES Club
Shiprock Campus
Diné Environmental Institute

Watch trailer: www.navajoboy.com

The Uranium Film Festival will screen The Return of Navajo Boy on February 18th at 3:30PM at The Pavilion Theater. See below for more details:

FEBRUARY 18TH, 3:30PM AT
The Pavilion Theater

188 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, NY 11215
Movie Hotline: 718-369-0838

For more information, visit the festival’s website.

“The Return of Navajo Boy” will be featured at the Center for Process Studies’ event, Indigenous Wisdom: Grace and Survival Under Fire on February 14, 2014.

The event will feature guest speaker John Wayne Cly from the film, who will discuss the experience with audience members and answer questions.

More details on the time and place of this screening will be forthcoming.

The University of Connecticut screened The Return of Navajo Boy on campus for students on November 14th. The student newspaper, The Daily Campus reported:

A family of Navajo people from Monument Valley was filmed a few decades ago as part of a movie titled “The Navajo Boy.” Since then the family has lived through separation from a baby son, the dangers of uranium mines, and abandonment from a government that has taken so much away from them. Last night the Native American Cultural Society held a screening of the documentary “The Return of Navajo Boy” at the Dodd’s center.

The story returns to the Navajo family of “The Navajo Boy,” the Clys. As they explained the movie and the events that occurred during it, the film presents the tribulations the Navajo people have experienced in recent years. They have been exploited through the decades by their presentations in Western films and their uncompensated work in uranium mines within Monument Valley. On a positive note, thanks to the second film and screenings of “The Navajo Boy” the missing son of the Cly family was able to find them almost 40 years later. This is chronicled in the latter half of the “The Return of Navajo Boy,” which continues to show the exploitation and poor treatment of the Cly family and all Navajo people in the area.

The Return of Navajo Boy will be screened at the University of Connecticut on November 14th, 2013. See their event poster below for more information:

Al Jazeera reports:

The vast reserves of uranium under Navajo Land have shaped the experiences of generations of Navajo, from the miners who were first employed to extract and refine the yellow ore to the families who still live with radioactive waste sites in their backyards. Approximately four million tons of uranium ore were extracted on Navajo Land between 1944 and 1986, and the Navajo people are still paying a steep price.

Read more.

The Return of Navajo Boy will screen at the Munich version of the Uranium Film Festival this September.

For more information about the Sept 26-29 screenings, visit the UFF website.

The Return of Navajo Boy will screen at the First annual Equus Film Festival in St Charles, Illinois on August 16, 2013. For more information visit the film festival’s website.

The Return of Navajo Boy will be screened from May 16th through 26th at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The screenings are part of the international Uranium Film Festival, which travels the world showcasing the best films dealing with nuclear issues. To learn more about the Uranium Film Festival, visit their website.

The Native American Rights Fund will be holding a screening of The Return of Navajo Boy at the Niwot Native American Film festival May 3rd, 2013 in Niwot, Colorado.

NIWOT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL
First Friday, May 3 – 7:30 PM – Return of Navajo Boy

Located at Elysian Fields Auctions 6924 79th Street, Niwot, Colorado (Look for the signs!) Screenings are FREE with a suggested donation. Ava Hamilton, Film Festival Curator/ Director will introduce the documentaries and films.

For more information, read the press release.

The Return of Navajo Boy will screen Friday, April 26th at the brand new Atomic Ciné Film Festival in Helsinki, Finland. For more information, visit the Atomic Ciné Facebook page. From their press release:

A new documentary film festival Atomic Ciné kicks off on Chernobyl day, the 26th of April. The festival focuses on nuclear power and uranium industry with award-winning films from Japan, USA, Niger, France, UK, Germany and Sweden, many of which have not been screened in Finland. The three-day festival is patroned by the film director Aki Kaurismäki.

The festival’s strong carrying themes are Japan before and after Fukushima, indigenous people and uranium mining, nuclear waste, nuclear weapons, and local initiatives towards self-sufficiency and sustainable energy production.

Below is a press release issued by the US Environmental Protection Agency. It follows the 2011 clean up of the abandoned mine in Elsie Mae Begay’s backyard.

Release Date: 09/18/2012
Contact Information: Rusty Harris-Bishop, harris-bishop.rusty@epa.gov

SAN FRANCISCO – This month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is beginning three uranium mine clean up actions on the Navajo Nation. The work, expected to cost $7.15 million, is part of the EPA’s five year plan to address uranium contamination on the Navajo Nation and is being done in partnership with the Navajo Nation’s Environmental Protection Agency. Funding for all three actions is from responsible parties, rather than the Superfund trust fund. The three cleanups will take place in Cove, Arizona; Casamero Lake, New Mexico; and near Church Rock, New Mexico. The EPA expects to complete the cleanups by November.

The first cleanup in the Cove area is expected to cost $1.5 million and take four to six weeks. Uranium mining in Cove Chapter, which lasted from the 1940s to the 1980s, included two transfer stations where uranium-bearing ore from the mines was stockpiled before trucks took the ore to the Shiprock Mill for processing. The transfer stations still contain some leftover uranium-tainted ore. Because this residual ore is hazardous, the public should avoid these areas until the cleanup is complete. EPA will remove the contaminated soil at Cove from one transfer station to another, where it will be sealed and stabilized. The area will be fenced and warning signs will be posted until a permanent disposal site can be selected. During the cleanup process, EPA will conduct air quality monitoring to ensure that residents in the immediate area — including the students at Cove Day School — are protected from any dust from the excavation.

Near Casamero Lake, New Mex., EPA will clean up contaminated soil left by the Section 32 Mine. That cleanup will cost an estimated $1.65 million and will include consolidating scattered contaminated soils on the main mine waste pile. Once that process is completed, the contaminated soils will be secured using a soil sealant, or temporary clean soil cover. The site will also be fenced until a final disposal decision is reached.

North of Church Rock, EPA will oversee work by General Electric/United Nuclear Corporation and Rio Algom Mining to clean up soils and a road located near the Northeast Church Rock Mine, the largest underground uranium mine in the U.S, and the Quivira mine which is located approximately 1/4 mile to the northeast. The UNC mine was operated from 1967 to 1984 and produced approximately 9.8 million pounds of uranium. The Quivira Mine was operated between 1976 and 1985 and produced 3.1 million pounds of uranium. This fall’s $4 million dollar work at the two areas near the Northeast Church Rock and Quivira mines precedes a larger $44 million cleanup of the Northeast Church Rock Mine expected to begin in 2016, contingent upon federal agency approvals.

For further information please visit: http://www.epa.gov/region9/superfund/navajo-nation/

###

Read more at the US EPA.

“The Return of Navajo Boy” (2000), an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival and PBS, is an internationally acclaimed documentary, directed by Jeff Spitz (Groundswell Educational Films), which reunited a Navajo family and triggered a federal investigation into uranium contamination. A stunning, 57-minute film, it tells the story of a long lost brother’s return to his extended Navajo family led by Elsie Mae Cly Begay, whose history in pictures reveals an ongoing struggle for environmental justice. A new 13-minute epilogue (produced in 2008) shows how the film and Groundswell Educational Films’ outreach campaign created news and rallied supporters, resulting in a Congressional mandate for an Environmental Protection Agency clean-up of uranium contamination on the Navajo Nation, including (eventually) Ms. Begay’s backyard.

Thursday, October 25 at 4:30 P.M.
“Navajo Lives” –
Mary Begay of the Navajo Nation
Persson hall Auditorium

Friday, October 26 at 12:15 P.M.
“’The Return of Navajo Boy’:
Its Environmental impact” –
Jeff Spitz, director
ALANA Cultural center

Friday, October 26 at 7 P.M.
“The Return of Navajo Boy” The Film
Golden Auditorium, Little Hall

Co-sponsored by the Colgate Arts Council, the Native American Studies Program,
the Environmental Studies Program, the Film and Media Studies Program,
and the Department of Geography

Food Patriots attended Green Fest at Navy Pier in Chicago from May 5th through 6th, handing out buttons and flyers to attendees.

Food Patriots attended the University of Chicago’s Earth Fest on 4/27/2012, passing out flyers and buttons to students.

Groundswell held a Food Patriots feedback screening at UW Madison sponsored by the Tales from Planet Earth film festival on 4/19/2012.

Below is a list of all the places Elsie has traveled to to show the film since 2000:

2000
Sundance Film Festival, Park City, UT
Navajo Nation Museum, Window Rock, AZ
Arizona International Film Festival, Tucscon, AZ
American Indian Center, Chicago IL
Chicago Historical Society, Chicago, IL
Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL
NAES College, Chicago, IL
Durango Film Festival, Durango, CO
Smithsonian’s Native American Film Festival, New York City
Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC
US Geological Survey, Reston, VA

2001
Manchester, England
California State University, Fullerton, CA
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Albuquerque Public Library, NM
Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ
Mesa Verde National Park, CO
Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL
Living Treasures Awards Ceremony, Chicago, IL

2003
Crow Canyon Archaeology Center, Cortez, CO
Sedgwick Cultural Center, Philadelphia, PA

2004
Finger Lakes Film Festival, Ithaca, NY
Arizona State Museum, Tucson, AZ

2006
Galleria Mistica, Tucson, AZ
Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA

2008
Congress of the United States, Washington DC

2010
Rough Rock Trading Post, AZ
Salt Lake City Public Library, UT

2011
University of Idaho
American Society for Environmental HIstory, Phoenix, AZ
Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR
Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Phil Thomas Performing Arts Center, Shiprock, NM
Farmington Public Library, NM

The New York Times reports on the hundreds of abandoned uranium mines still contaminating the Navajo Nation:

The abandoned mine here, about 60 miles east of the Grand Canyon, joins the list of hundreds of such sites identified across the 27,000 square miles of Navajo territory in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico that are the legacy of shoddy mining practices and federal neglect. From the 1940s through the 1980s, the mines supplied critical materials to the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

For years, unsuspecting Navajos inhaled radioactive dust and drank contaminated well water. Many of them became sick with cancer and other diseases.

The radioactivity at the former mine is said to measure one million counts per minute, translating to a human dose that scientists say can lead directly to malignant tumors and other serious health damage, according to Lee Greer, a biologist at La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif. Two days of exposure at the Cameron site would expose a person to more external radiation than the Nuclear Regulatory Commission considers safe for an entire year.

Read the full article to learn more.

The Grand Junction Free Press published an article on an upcoming screening of The Return of Navajo Boy in Colorado.

The 27,000 square mile Navajo Nation, encompassing parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, contain the largest uranium deposits in the United States, and more than 500 abandoned Cold War era uranium mines, according to the EPA.

The internationally acclaimed film demonstrates environmental racism and the struggle a Navajo grandmother goes through to attain justice.

Perry Charley, director of the Uranium Education Program at Dine’ College in Shiprock, New Mexico, will present the film and lead a discussion of the lasting impact of mining on Indian lands.

Read the full article here.

Groundswell is teaming up with Northwestern University Chemistry Department and the Bluhm Legal Clinic to help DePue residents get a comprehensive clean up of industrial waste in their small town of 1,800.
See below for photographs of Northwestern interns organizing vast amounts of data provided by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

The Oxford Journal of Environmental History ran a cover story on uranium mining in the Navajo Nation, using The Return of Navajo Boy as a major source. Marsha Weisiger of New Mexico State University writes in her article:

The camera pans across the vermillion mesas and buttes of Monument Valley that John Ford and John Wayne made mythic. Here, near the border between Utah and Arizona, lives the most famous family you have never heard of, the family of Happy Cly, pictured again and again in Arizona Highways, the portfolios of photographers Josef Muench and Ray Manley, and postcards sold at Goulding’s tourist lodge. Dissolve. The next scenes introduce Cly’s great-grandson, Lorenzo Begay. He leafs through old black-and-white pictures of his family, stills from a movie he has never seen: a smiling girl in a velvet- een blouse studded with silver conchos, a grinning boy with a bandana tied across his forehead. “I never thought that pictures would change anyone’s life,” Begay narrates. “But that was before the return of the Navajo boy.”

To read the full article, visit the Oxford Journals website.

The LaSalle News Tribune published an article about Groundswell’s upcoming collaboration with Northwestern University and the town of DePue, Illinois. DePue has been a Superfund site since 1995 and remains contaminated by what is left of a shuttered zinc smelting plant and the remains of a diammonium phosphate fertilizer plant. Stay tuned for more updates on our new project soon.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Navajo Boy Film and Media Campaign Guides EPA to Environmental Justice

Navajo Activist and Filmmaker Present their Story Today at EPA Headquarters

      WASHINGTON DC — A documentary film and decade long media campaign by Groundswell Educational Films and a Navajo family opened eyes in Congress and paved the way this summer for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) first ever cleanup of a Cold War uranium mine on Native American land.

     A Sundance Film Festival and PBS selection The Return of Navajo Boy film, and the Navajo family in it, triggered a federal investigation of uranium houses. After ten years of activism — screenings, public events, media coverage and online advocacy — the innovative media campaign and strong Navajo community voices led to the EPA’s $7.5 million cleanup of the abandoned uranium mine adjacent to the homesite of the family in The Return of Navajo Boy film in Monument Valley UT. Skyline Mine is one of more than 500 abandoned uranium mines listed in the EPA’s 5 year plan to cleanup Cold War uranium contamination in the Navajo Nation. In 2007 Congressman Henry Waxman (D-California) introduced a congressional investigation by describing the situation as “a forty year history of bipartisan failure and a modern American tragedy”.

     To commemorate Native American Heritage Month the EPA is sponsoring a presentation today by Groundswell co-founder, Jeff Spitz, director of the film and Navajo environmental activist Mary Begay, whose family is featured in the film. Spitz, an Associate Professor of documentary film at Columbia College Chicago and Begay, an elementary school teacher in the Navajo Nation, will present film clips, websites, webisodes, science curriculum and social media that chronicle their campaign and the unfolding federal response. The presentation begins at 11:00AM, Nov. 16 in Rachel L. Carson Great Hall, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.

     “Our work with Groundswell points to the urgent need for more education in impacted Navajo communities where radioactive waste contaminates houses, water, soil and livestock,” said Mary Begay.

     “While the media flocked to Japan’s radiation crisis, the Navajo Nation struggles to secure a federal clean up of Cold War uranium contamination,” says director Jeff Spitz. “Stories and film are powerful tools to create empathy and communicate across cultures. Groundswell uses new media tools to give voice, public engagement strategies to advocate for environmental justice, and mainstream media to amplify stories.”

     Groundswell Educational Films, based in Chicago, has been actively booking screenings and presentations for 10 years, leveraging media coverage for the issue and creating a platform for the Navajo community to advocate for EPA cleanup. “Transferring media skills to community members continues to be a key to the success of this project,” said Spitz. Accomplishments include triggering the investigation of uranium houses; gaining compensation for ailing former uranium miners and helping the Navajo Nation to move Congress to authorize the five agencies–Nuclear Regulatory Agency, Dept of Energy, Indian Health Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and EPA to work together to cleanup the contamination.

The 27,000 square miles of the Navajo Nation contain the largest uranium deposits in the US and more than 500 abandoned Cold War era uranium mines according to the US EPA, which continue to contaminate land, water and homes and impact the health of residents.

• 1950s-1970s: The US government failed to warn Navajos about the dangers of uranium mining and radioactive waste despite the fact that the United States government was the sole purchaser of all the uranium.
• In 1990 Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). RECA represents an official government apology to victims of America’s Cold War nuclear program. RECA expressly acknowledges the United States’ failure to warn three groups of victims: uranium miners, on-site atomic test victims and downwind communities exposed to fallout from the atomic bomb tests.
• In 2000 The Return of Navajo Boy premieres at the Sundance Film Festival, raising awareness of “uranium houses”. Later that year, the EPA removed these structures from Navajo lands.
• In 2005 the Navajo Nation became the first indigenous government to ban uranium mining and exploration on its lands.
• In 2006 and 2007 Congress, led by Henry Waxman (D-California, Chair of the Budget and Government Oversight Committee) sought direct testimony from Navajo officials and demanded a plan of action from the five federal agencies responsible for what Waxman described as a “40 year history of bipartisan failure and a modern American tragedy”.
• In 2008 Groundswell and Navajo family members screened the film and a new epilogue on Capitol Hill.
• In 2008, Congress authorized a comprehensive 5-year plan to coordinate the clean up of contaminated structures, soil and water in the Navajo Nation.
• In April 2011 US EPA began its clean up operation in Monument Valley at the abandoned Skyline Mine which contaminated the homesite of the Navajo family featured in The Return of Navajo Boy.

About Groundswell Educational Films: Groundswell is a non-profit organization with a mission to collaborate cross-culturally in all facets of documentary filmmaking, transfer media skills into disadvantaged communities, and partner with stakeholders to stimulate local actions that address social justice issues raised in our films. Groundswell engages audiences through film, live performances and multi-arts programming and amplifies marginalized voices through new and traditional media.

The Return of Navajo Boy will screen for conference attendees at the joint conference of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association on April 22nd, 2011. The third annual joint conference will be held in Southwest Texas. Details:

Marriott Rivercenter
RW Salon D
101 Bowie Street
San Antonio, Texas 78205
6:30-8:00 pm

The screening will only be open to conference attendees. For more information, visit the conference’s website.

The ASEH conference will host a special screening of The Return of Navajo Boy on Friday, April 15 at the Wyndam Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. The event will take place from 8:30 to noon in Salon 6 of the hotel. For more details, see the following flyer:

The Return of Navajo Boy will screen on March 26th, 2011 at the University of Idaho’s Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre at 7PM as part of the university’s Sapatq’ayn Cinema Film Festival. Special guest Elsie Mae Begay, the Navajo grandmother from the film, will appear and answer questions from the audience at this special event. The theater is located at:

Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main St
Moscow, Idaho 83843

Update: The University’s official press release has been posted.

The Return of Navajo Boy screened at the 29th annual Public Interest Environmental Law Conference on March 5th, 2011. The screening, which was held at the University of Oregon School of Law, was hosted by Linda Richards, a PhD candidate in the History of Science at Oregon State University and Oliver Tapaha, Navajo Tribal Member also from OSU.
A discussion following the screening took place about the issues raised in the film. “It was another standing room audience” said Richards, who had hosted an earlier screening of the film in November 2010.

The story didn’t end after Groundswell released its film The Return of Navajo Boy in 2000. Groundswell’s series of webisodes documenting the struggle for cleanup of uranium contamination on Navajo lands carry the story forward.
Now Navajos are documenting the US Environmental Protection Agency cleanup with their own flip cameras. And the web video series has started generating attention of its own.
IndieWire’s film distribution guru Sydney Levine called the webisode series and Groundswell’s outreach efforts “a good case study” for mobilizing around an important issue.

NuclearFreePlanet.org writes:

“This is a good example of successful activist media. As the uranium mining debate heats up again, this film becomes even more pertinent. Watch the webisodes to get an idea of what this Navajo family, and the Navajo Nation, is dealing with. This film got a lot of people involved in this issue and shows that independent media and community members together can make a difference.”

You can donate to support production of more webisodes filmed by Navajos themselves.

Groundswell recently got word from Brazil that The Return of Navajo Boy is the first film selected for the inaugural Uranium Film Festival called Uranio Em Moviemento.
The director of the festival also invited Groundswell’s Jeff Spitz (director of The Return of Navajo Boy) and a Navajo representative to attend the festival in May and take part in panel discussions about the impacts of uranium mining on indigenous peoples.
The festival, which features films from around the world, will take place from May 21st to 28th in Rio De Janeiro and June 2nd through 9th in Sao Paulo. Films featured in the festival will also be donated to a new program called The Yellow Archives, which will subtitle them in Portuguese and provide them to schools in Portuguese-speaking countries.
For more information, visit the Uranium Film Festival website.
Uranium Film Festival website. View the invitation they extended to Groundswell below:

Groundswell created this video featuring the American Indian Film Gallery and its creator Fred MacDonald. MacDonald combines a lifetime of collecting rare archival films and a passion for preserving history to create a website where visitors can watch hundreds of historic films about Native Americans.
Dr MacDonald worked countless hours to digitize these fading films of the past and to curate the gallery so visitors can learn not only about Native American traditions, but also about media representations of indigenous peoples from days past.
To explore the archive, visit the American Indian Film Gallery’s website.

When The Return of Navajo Boy was screened at the Amiens Film Festival last year in France, festival organizers had it subtitled specially for the event. After the festival ended, the FILA 13 Subtitulacio S.L. of Spain made a special donation of the subtitles to Groundswell to help advance the film and outreach campaign in francophone countries.
“This is our contribution to your project,” said Isabel Rancaño of FILA 13.
Both the film itself and the epilogue have been subtitled in French. Groundswell will distribute special French-language DVDs for screenings starting in France where Groundswell board member Alan Slavik is based in Paris. If you have any referrals for French language events, please let us know.

It’s been six months since Groundswell produced this video about how a new program allows food stamp recipients to buy fresh food at farmer’s markets in Chicago. The video has now been viewed over 500 times and is being embedded by blogs like OrganicNation.tv and Good Food For All. It was sent out by the USDA to their mailing list.
Here is what Experimental Station, the organization that started the LINK to the Market pilot program has to say about how Groundswell’s video has given them a boost:

“We were extremely fortunate to have Groundswell Films produce the video clip about SNAP/EBT/LINK at City of Chicago Farmers Markets. Through Groundswell’s efforts we quickly spread the word about the availability to use LINK benefits at the markets. This clip has also become a tool for us as we consult with other farmers markets on developing EBT programs. So not only did it help attract new shoppers, it is now helping to open doors for new markets. This has had a positive impact on our efforts to establish LINK services at farmers markets across Illinois.”
Corey Chatman
EBT/SNAP Consultant
Experimental Station

Groundswell hosted a panel for the Greentown conference here in Chicago focusing on the rise of the fresh food movement, the subject of our new documentary in progress.
Groundswell organizes and hosts conference panels in a fresh new way, using video clips as discussion triggers, engaging audience in two-way discussions. We shared video clips from Groundswell’s fresh food film in progress.
Our panelists include Robert Pierce of Growing Power (featured in the film), Karen Lehman of Fresh Taste, Chicago, Ken Dunn of City Farm (featured in film), and Rochelle Davis of the Healthy Schools Campaign.
To book a panel like this at your conference, either on this subject or another subject, please contact us.

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Program (RECA) is looking for individuals who may qualify for a claim. If you would like more information, or need assistance filing a claim, please contact Denise Begay (928) 255-3477, or Julie Holiday (435)-444-0171. The event will take place at the Kayenta Recreation Center in Kayenta, AZ on January 18, 2011.
The RECA Program will host an event on Tuesday, January 18th at 10AM at the Kayenta Recreation Center. The event will also feature a screening of the award-winning documentary “The Return of Navajo Boy.”
The Return of Navajo Boy also helped trigger a federal investigation into uranium houses and led the Department of Justice to pay out a $100,000 RECA compensation check to a former uranium miner featured in the story. A new epilogue shows how the film and Groundswell Educational Films create news and rally supporters.
Agenda for January 18, 2010:
10:00 am
Posting of Colors
10:15 am
Opening Prayer
10:25 am
Lawrence Martinez
Master of Ceremonies
10:35 am
Introductions
11:00 am 1:00 pm
Screening of The Return of Navajo Boy
Questions and Answers after film
1:15 am – 5:00 pm
Meet and Great with RECA Interns
Refreshments Available

The Return of Navajo Boy will screen on Monday, January 10th at the Wilkinson Public Library in Telluride, Colorado. The event will start at 6PM and will feature a Q&A session immediately after the film with director Jeff Spitz. The full address of the library can be found below:
Wilkinson Public Library
100 West Pacific Ave, Telluride, CO

The Moab to Monument Valley Film Commission will host a screening of “The Return of Navajo Boy” on Saturday, January 8th at 7PM. The screening will take place at the Moab to Monument Valley Film Commission headquarters at Star Hall, 125 East Center Street, Moab, UT 84532.
Director Jeff Spitz will be on hand to take questions from the audience after the film is shown. For more information about this upcoming screening, visit the Moab to Monument Valley Film Commission website.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported on January 1st, 2011:

The sickness in Elsie Mae Begay’s family troubled her for a long time. So she turned to a Navajo medicine man.
The healer took measure of the family settlement here and told her the poison was in the dust kicked up by the wind that sometimes rips through the desert. In years to come, environmental scientists for the tribe and the U.S. government would confirm that diagnosis in their own way, saying the family was at risk from radiation left over from uranium at the Skyline Mine on the mesa above the homes.
[…]
About $5.9 million is being spent on the tainted piles in Begay’s backyard. The contaminated dirt — as much as 30,000 cubic yards of it — is just beyond a cluster of dwellings built on land that her aunt, Mary Holiday, settled around the time the mine was idled in 1962. Begay moved her six children there in 1978 after her divorce.

Read the full article, A legacy of uranium, a prayer for healing by reporter Judy Fahys.

Groundswell and Northwestern University’s Chemistry Department are building a website to offer water quality information to Navajo residents. The EPA has identified many contaminated water sources, but government data comes in scientific language that is not accessible to most residents.
With support from the National Science Foundation, Northwestern Chemistry professor Franz Geiger contracted Groundswell to develop an interactive, user friendly website with educational extensions into Navajo communities concerned about water quality. There are more than 1,000 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo reservation. Impacts to groundwater, livestock and family health concern many communities. The EPA and Navajo water researchers have investigated hundreds of wells scattered across the 25,000 square mile reservation. The new water website will enable Navajos to share their findings, educate residents and lobby for assistance. Navajo educators want more than signs with public health warnings.
Help us produce webisodes that empower Navajos to report about their own communities and share information. Click to select a level for your donation.

Groundswell recently sent two hundred Robben Island Singers CDs to our community arts partner in Kwa Mashu, the largest township in South Africa. Ekhaya Multi-Arts Centre, located near Durban, nurtures the talents of local youth in performing arts and media. Ekhaya also sells Robben Island Singers CDs and promotes the Robben Island Singers through its local radio station. Muntu Nxumalo, musical director of the Robben Island Singers, has begun developing a new radio show at Ekhaya. His goal is to teach the youth to perform as a chorus for the Robben Island Singers.
Edmund Mhlongo, founder of Ekhaya Multi-Arts Centre, came to Chicago recently. Visiting schools with Groundswell co-founder, Jeff Spitz, Edmund introduced Prosser high school students to music, media and the challenges faced by contemporary South African teenagers (see a video clip from Prosser High School).
You can download Robben Island Singers songs from South Africa’s freedom struggle.

On Monday, November 22nd, Oregon State University will host a free screening of “The Return of Navajo Boy” in the Memorial Union building in Corvallis, Oregon.
The screening will start at 7pm in room 206 and donations will be accepted to bring three of the people involved with the film to an American Society for Environmental history meeting in Phoenix next April to share their history. The November screening is made possible through the support of the Horning Endowment in the Humanities and is co-sponsored by the Native American Longhouse and Peace Jam.
See the following flyer for more information, or a map to the building where the film will be shown.

A special screening of “The Return of Navajo Boy” will take place at the University of Chicago on November 10th. The event will feature Navajo Boy’s director Jeff Spitz as well as Judy Pasternak, the former LA Times reporter and author of the new book Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed.
The event, free and open to the public, will take place on November 10th event from 6pm – 8pm in the University of Chicago Law School Auditorium at 1111 East 60th Street.

South African playwright Edmund Mhlongo visits Prosser Career Academy on Chicago’s West Side. This cross-cultural school visit was coordinated by Groundswell Educational Films as part of our Robben Island Singers educational program.

Lena produced this video for the GreenTown 2010 Panel Discussion moderated by Groundswell co-founder Jeff Spitz, focusing on Urban Farming and the rise of the Fresh Food Movement.

The American Library Association distributed this 17 minute independent documentary by Groundswell executive director Jeff Spitz. It’s a story that inspires communities everywhere to rally around their public libraries.

A special screening of “The Return of Navajo Boy” will take place at Columbia College Chicago on November 10th. The event will feature Navajo Boy’s director Jeff Spitz as well as Judy Pasternak, the former LA Times reporter and author of the new book Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed.
The event, free and open to the public, will take place on November 10th event from 12:30 – 3:20 on campus at 1104 S. Wabash in the 8th floor theater.

The University of Wisconsin Center for Culture, History and Environment (CHE) will be hosting a screening of “The Return of Navajo Boy” on Wednesday, October 13th at 6PM in the 123/5 Bradley Memorial building on campus. The CHE website announcement reads:

To kick off a year in which the CHE place-based workshop will be focused on environmental health we will be screening Jeff Spitz’s powerful documentary The Return of Navajo Boy. We showed the film at Tales from Planet Earth 2007, but since then an important new epilogue has been added to the film to show how the film has led to a renewed campaign for environmental justice for Native American tribes affected by uranium mining. A film about the power of film; about environmental justice; and about the interplay between people, landscapes, and images, Return of Navajo Boy is the perfect narrative for provoking discourse central to CHE’s mission.

Westminster College’s Nu Che Native American student group and the Office of Diversity Student Affairs & Services will be hosting a special campus screening of “The Return of Navajo Boy” with director Jeff Spitz on hand to conduct a Q&A session afterward.
The screening will take place on October 1st from 3-5PM at Converse 202 on campus. Contact Rich Garcia for more information.

“The Return of Navajo Boy” will be screening at the American Indian Walk-In Center in Salt Lake City on Friday, October 1st, 2010. The event will feature the film’s director, Jeff Spitz, who will participate in a Q&A session after the film is shown. See the below poster for more information.

The Return of Navajo Boy will screen at the Salt Lake City Public Library on September 30th, 2010. Details:

In conjunction with the Gallery at Library Square’s exhibit A Gesture of Kinship: A Story of Change in Self, Community, and Culture in One Navajo Community (August 28-October 8), The City Library presents a series of American Indian films. All films will be shown at 7:00 p.m. in the Main Library Auditorium. Cosponsored by the SLC Film Center.
September 30: The Return of Navajo Boy (2000/2009)
This film chronicles an extraordinary chain of events, beginning with the appearance of a 1950s film reel, which leads to the return of a long-lost brother to his Navajo family. The film has since triggered a federal investigation into uranium contamination on Navajo land. The film was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival and has won many awards including Best Documentary at the Indian Summer Film Festival. The film’s director, Jeff Spitz, will be in attendance to introduce his film and participate in a Q&A.

Northwestern University chemistry professor Franz Geiger and a small group of interns will collaborate with Groundswell and stakeholders on Navajo Nation to create a rich new website with information about the quality of water on Navajo Nation.
This new, interactive website will incorporate a large US EPA dataset with photos and video and will be useful to Navajo residents looking for information about their local water supplies.
The US EPA made extensive measurements of water sources in the late 1990s (many of which were contaminated by nearby Cold War-era uranium mining), but the wealth of data they produced has not been available in an easily-understandable web format for residents of Navajo Nation. This project will solve that problem and help fill a void of reliable information about water quality in Navajo communities.
In addition to the design and programming of the new website and all the data inputting that this entails, this project will also include collaboration and outreach with Navajos to ensure the usefulness of this groundbreaking new website. For participating Northwestern chemistry student interns, this project will serve as a prime example of chemistry making a tangible impact in people’s lives.
The website will be publicly accessible in September 2010.

University of Oregon’s Coalition Against Environmental Racism (CAER) screened “The Return of Navajo Boy” at the Many Nations Longhouse in Eugene Oregon on May 26th, 2010.
The event was co-sponsored by the college’s The Native American Student Union. CAER is an campus group dedicated to supporting environmental justice and fighting against environmental racism.

The Center for Resilient Cities and Growing Power Inc, two Wisconsin-based nonprofit organizations invited Groundswell to film the start of an urban farm research center in Madison, Wisconsin.
Will Allen, Growing Power Inc’s CEO who made the list of Time Magazine’s most influential people for 2010, is a leader in the urban farming and food justice movements. See how he gets people involved in building community.

A new documentary is shining a light on undocumented youth who were born outside the U.S. but raised in America– and the struggles they face.
“Papers the Movie” is the story of five undocumented high school students who risk deportation. 475 screenings of the film have taken place nationwide, according to the Papers The Movie website, which has a goal of reaching 1,000 screenings. One such screening was held on Capitol Hill as recently as May 18th.
According to the filmmakers, approximately 2 million undocumented children live in the United States. “65,000 undocumented students graduate every year from high school without ‘papers’ and find the door to the future slammed shut,” the producers say, noting that it is illegal for them to work or drive. “For most there is no path to citizenship.”
The producers of the film hope that Congress will approve the DREAM Act, which could provide that path to citizenship if youth attend an American college or join the military.

After a decade of investigations, the EPA has finally put up a fence to warn people about the hazardous waste in Elsie Mae Begay’s backyard. The area around the abandoned Skyline uranium mine is one of only a few sites on Navajo Nation which has received this attention, despite there being as many as 1,000 former mines on the reservation.
This latest development occurred almost ten years after EPA consultant Andrew Sowder acknowledged to Groundswell in an interview that putting up fencing “is the least they could do” after demolishing Elsie’s uranium-contaminated house.
Last week EPA contractor Brian Milton told Mary Helen Begay, Elsie’s daughter in law, that the steps officials were taking were only temporary, but intended to protect the area until a more comprehensive cleanup could be done. Groundswell trained and equipped Mary Helen to use the flip video camera that the above video was shot with.
Contractors sprayed a special coating on radioactive cables, debris and waste piles to prevent contaminated topsoil from being blown away in the wind, as it has since 1944 when the mine was abandoned. “It basically takes the top inch or so of the soil and puts a crust on it, kind of like a pie crust,” Milton told Begay. He said it normally only lasts a year or so before it becomes ineffective. “It’s just really a temporary measure to fix the top of the soil and prevent erosion and stuff.”
Still a question is where the EPA will relocate the waste to permanently. The cheaper alternative which has been suggested by some officials would be to store it in a repository on-site. Many Navajos however are staunchly opposed to on-site storage due to the health impacts and environmental legacy that uranium mining has caused over the last six decades.
Elsie and Groundswell went to Washington DC in fall 2008 to screen “The Return of Navajo Boy” on Capitol Hill. Ironically, the EPA’s five-year cleanup plan does not include the radioactive waste in her backyard. As a result of Elsie’s determination, and Groundswell’s engagement with policy makers, Elsie and her backyard are now included in the 5 year plan to clean up cold war uranium contamination in Navajo Lands. But questions remain: where will EPA put the radioactive waste?

The Indian Health Service recently launched its “Community Uranium Exposure: Journey to Healing” program with free health screenings and a showing of “The Return of Navajo Boy” in Cove, Arizona. The program, which includes screening Groundswell’s documentary “The Return of Navajo Boy” is based out of an 18-wheel truck known as the Wellness on Wheels van.
The first stop was the Navajo Chapter House in Cove on April 29th, featuring an appearance by Elsie Mae Begay, who has acted as a uranium contamination awareness ambassador after her appearance in the documentary. Elsie, accompanied by her son Lorenzo and daughter in law Mary Helen, took advantage of the opportunity and accepted a health screening herself.
Groundswell’s film, shown at the event, “has proven its ability to give Navajos a voice in the larger society” according to Lisa Allee, the director of the Community Uranium Exposure: Journey to Healing program. Groundswell co-founder Jeff Spitz was also able to attend the screening and answer questions, thanks to generous support for community outreach provided by the Ira Ziering Foundation.

Ira Ziering (left) and Groundswell’s Executive Director Jeff Spitz (right) at the recent Cove, AZ health screening event.
Presentations were also made about the health impacts of uranium the abandoned uranium mines in the area, and the effects they have on local water sources. The Indian Health Service looks forward to using the film at future events as a way to show the dangers of uranium contamination and the importance of health screenings.
The event made the front page of the Gallup Independent on May 1st:

Groundswell recently received good news from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs: we were awarded a Program I grant for 2010!
The grant “encourages the attainment of artistic excellence and financial stability through general operating support for arts organizations,” according to the Department of Cultural Affairs.
Applicants were judged based on artistic and social merit, organizational development, fiscal accountability and application quality. Organizations awarded grants are eligible to receive future grants for two consecutive years before the application process opens up again.

The Indian Health Service will on Thursday April 29th present a special screening of “The Return of Navajo Boy” at the Cove Chapter House in Cove, Arizona. The film will be screened at the uranium exposure awareness-building event which starts at 10AM. The film screens at 1:30.
IHS’ Lisa Allee helped organize the event, and both documentary filmmaker Jeff Spitz and documentary participant Elsie Mae Begay will be present to take questions. Health screenings and presentations about water quality and contaminated buildings will also take place. Recently the film also screened at the Rough Rock Trading Post.
Groundswell’s partnership with the IHS also extends to agency playing the film in waiting rooms at the Northern Navajo Medical Center in Shiprock, Arizona. The Indian Health Service’s flyer is re-printed below along with a letter inviting Groundswell to the event from Lisa Allee.
Update: Read a report form the first Community Uranium Exposure: Journey to Healing event.

The Navajo Chapter House in Oljato New Mexico voted 28 to 0 to direct the US Environmental Protection Agency to clean up hazardous waste at the Skyline mine on Sunday, April 11th.
The abandoned mine, once home to more than 100,000 pounds of uranium ore, sits on Navajo land and has long been known as a danger to local residents. Tests have shown that the level of radiation exposure surrounding the area is ten times the limit considered safe by the EPA.
In 2001, the EPA demolished the nearby home of Elsie Mae Begay, which had been partially constructed of uranium rocks which were left free for the taking after the mine closed in 1944. Begay’s son died of brain cancer at the age of 24.
Officials visited the area recently to discuss plans for cleanup of the area. Some local Navajo residents have long urged the EPA to at the very least build a fence that would restrict access to the mine tailings and debris from children and livestock.
Nine years ago, Groundswell Educational Films interviewed EPA uranium expert Andrew Sowder to ask what the next steps would be after Begay’s old home was removed. “The next, and the most important issue for a situation like this would actually be restricting access to some of the soil and ore that’s been left behind.”
“If it can’t be cleaned up at least right away, probably the least that should be done is some fencing placed as well as some kind of signs indicating the hazards present. So that’s really the very least, and probably isn’t that costly to do and it’s certainly the responsible thing to do.” (Watch his interview below.) The fencing and signs were never placed however.
But the recent vote by the tribal council could change that, assuming the authorities stick to their word.

The US Department of Justice recently posted an internship description on their website asking for students to help identify residents of Navajo Nation who have been impacted by the presence of abandoned uranium mines.
The effort is part of a comprehensive five year plan that the US federal government embarked upon at the urging of Congressman Henry Waxman, Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2006. The plan calls for Navajo lands to be cleaned up and for Navajos whose health has been impacted by the old cold-war era uranium mines to be fairly compensated.
According to the new internship description, the Justice Department is “looking for creative and dynamic college students to serve as [Radiation Exposure Compensation Act] Program Outreach Interns. The RECA Program will cover travel costs, room and board, and pay a small stipend to cover Outreach Interns’ incidental expenses.”
The task is particularly difficult because victims must provide onerous documentation of their eligibility and fill out a more than 20 page form. Navajo residents often don’t have the medical records that officials require, which makes proving health impacts even harder.
The Department of Justice says that the responsibilities of the new interns will include spreading awareness about the compensation program, helping applicants find or obtain paperwork, and helping arrange medical testing for those affected by atomic programs. Training for the student interns will occur in June, July, and early August, and their employment is expected to be 20 hours a week for at least six months. Those interested should apply on the Department of Justice’s website.
The RECA act originally passed Congress in 1990, but has seen a renewed interest due to Congressman Waxman’s hearings four years ago. It permits up to $100,000 in compensation to those affected by uranium mining and atomic bomb testing during the cold war.

The Northern Navajo Medical Center has begun showing “The Return of Navajo Boy” in its waiting rooms, which serve residents in the Shiprock, New Mexico area.
Groundswell Educational Films recently forged a partnership with the Center, which is the largest hospital on the reservation, that is now resulting in regular screenings of the film in the hospital, intended to increase awareness of the health impacts of uranium contamination in the area.
“Your film has proven it ability to give Navajos a voice in the larger society,” Lisa Allee the Program Director of the Journey to Healing uranium program at the Medical Center said in a letter to Groundswell. “We recognize your organization’s continued success in amplifying those voices in schools, colleges and mainstream media.”
Navajo Nation is home to more than 1,000 cold-war era abandoned uranium mines and many of these sites still contain hazardous materials which threaten the lives of nearby Navajo residents. “The Return of Navajo Boy” features one Navajo family who has suffered from the legacy of the mining. Elsie Mae Begay, a Navajo grandmother in the film, lived in a hogan (traditional Navajo house) partially constructed of uranium debris for example. Her son died at age 24 due to brain cancer.
“This is an unprecedented step for the Indian Health Service,” Navajo Boy director Jeff Spitz said in reaction. “It stems from Henry Waxman who opened up the Sunday LA Times in November, 2006 and read about Elsie Mae Begay’s uranium house and a litany of uranium mining legacies plaguing Navajo families. A real groundswell of concern evolved out of Elsie’s cry for help.”
Officials believe that the film is a potent tool to spread awareness about the old mines and the dangers they pose. At the end of April, the Indian Health Service kick off a mobile health initiative designed to reach remote Navajo communities which do not live near traditional hospitals.
The Northern Navajo Medical Center is located at the “four corners”– an area where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet. According to officials, the Center teats about 40 residents per day at its in-patient facilities, and about 400 out-patient.
Update: The Indian Health Service is now using “The Return of Navajo Boy” as part of a “Wellness on Wheels” initiative all around Navajo Nation to raise awareness. Read about the first Community Uranium Exposure: Journey to Healing screening.

“The Return of Navajo Boy” will screen at the Environmental Law & Policy Center on May 3rd, in Chicago, Illinois.
Director Jeff Spitz will be on hand to discuss the film and take questions about the environmental and health threats posed by uranium waste on indigenous lands.
The screening will occur from 11:45AM to 1:45PM on Monday, May 3rd, 2010. Lunch will be provided. Admission is free, RSVP by April 29th to Anne Fell (AFell@elpc.org). The ELPC is located at 35 E. Wacker Drive, Suite 1300, Chicago IL, 60601.
Update: A recap of the screening and discussion is now available.

Groundswell’s award-winning documentary The Return of Navajo Boy will screen at Amnesty International’s Human Rights Film Festival on Saturday, April 24th 2010 in Silver Spring Maryland.
Filmmaker Jeff Spitz, Groundswell’s co-founder, will also be on hand to also present a work in progress screening of his upcoming project, Robben Island Singers.
For more information, see the festival’s official website.
Update: Read a report from the Amnesty International Human Rights Festival.

Groundswell is pleased to join forces with South African Partners (SA Partners), a Boston-based organization dedicated to the development of long-term partnership opportunities between the United States and South Africa.
Program areas at SA Partners bring together people here and in South Africa to support the work of redressing apartheid’s legacy and building the new South Africa. The central focus of activities is to establish mutually beneficial, long-term partnerships between South Africa and the United States. After six years, SA Partners has begun to formulate a better understanding of two-way partnerships as an important development tool.
SA Partners will be supporting Groundswell and The Robben Island Singers project in upcoming events and will also promote the trio’s CDs for sale on-site at events and online.
About South Africa Partners
South Africa Partners, Inc. (SA Partners) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development of long-term partnership opportunities between the United States and South Africa. Building on the efforts of tens of thousands of individuals across the United States who supported the international movement for democracy in South Africa, SA Partners seeks to support those efforts which promote South Africa’s equitable and sustainable development, while building bridges between the two countries.

Director and Groundswell co-founder Jeff Spitz will be in the Washington DC area on April 24th to present and discuss both The Return of Navajo Boy and a preview screening of Robben Island Singers.
The first ever Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival will be held in Silver Spring, MD (just outside of Washington D.C.) from April 23-25, 2010. This multi-venue, multi-media event will bring together artists, local businesses and politicians to use socially transformative art to raise awareness of human rights and justice issues, as well as the important work of Amnesty International.
Says Groundswell co-founder Jeff Spitz, “The wide range of artists, art forms and creative human rights campaigns is inspiring. I will be on a panel with fellow filmmakers Sunday, April 25th 2:30 – 4:30 to be followed by work in progress screening for Robben Island Singers.”
More information can be found at HumanRightsArtFestival.com.
Update: Read a report from the Amnesty International Human Rights Arts Festival.

“The Return of Navajo Boy” was presented on March 3rd, 2010 at Daley College in Chicago. It was sponsored by the student psychology club. Filmmaker Jeff Spitz was on hand to answer students questions in a Q&A session after the film.

After watching Navajo Boy Webisodes, Paul Robinson of the Southwest Uranium Research and Information Center relates Elsie’s story to the rest of Navajo Nation. Paul is from the Southwest Research and Information Center and focuses on Uranium mining contamination in the Church Rock and Window Rock area among other issues.
Watch more Return of Navajo Boy webisodes.

Since 1997, the non-profit Chicago Football Classic has been promoting scholarships for African American students looking to attend college. Many historical black colleges and universities (HBCUs) attend the annual event and showcase their educational programs.
A battle of high school marching bands and a football game draw crowds to Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois each fall. Over 5,000 Chicagoans attend the event each year for the musical performances and other attractions.
Groundswell created this short promotional video report for them in 2009.
For more information and tickets, visit the Chicago Football Classic website.

Groundswell is excited to announce that the music of The Robben Island Singers is now available for purchase or download at Amazon.com and iTunes.
Groundswell created two complete albums from the Robben Island Singers documentary film journey – Songs from South Africa’s Freedom Struggle and Stories from South Africa’s Freedom Struggle. The Songs version includes the Singers’ songs from of their struggle against Apartheid while imprisoned with Nelson Mandela on South Africa’s most notorious apartheid prison island. The Stories version also includes their stories from the struggle.
Listeners from around the world can now share an experience that Chicagoans still talk about – the world debut of three ex-political prisoners who never imagined they would live to tell their personal stories, or sing the folk songs that fed their spirits in prison. Ironically, their journey continues as inner city high schools and colleges sponsor cultural exchanges between students and Robben Island Singers.
To purchase or preview the albums, click one of the following links:
Songs from South Africa’s Freedom Struggle (Amazon.com) (iTunes)
Stories from South Africa’s Freedom Struggle (Amazon.com) (iTunes)
Physical versions of the albums can also be bought at the Chicago theater company Remy Bumppo’s production of The Island, which runs until March 7th.

Groundswell intern Mitch Wenkus (Columbia College Chicago, ’10) is this year’s recipient of the Studs Terkel Scholarship Award presented by The Community Media Workshop and Columbia College Chicago. The award has been given annually in honor of the late Pulitzer-Prize winning oral historian.
The winner of the $2,000 prize, selected by a board of judges from the Community Media Workshop, is given to a student with the best grassroots class project. Mitch’s short documentary film won because it best illustrates Studs Terkel’s perspective of our city—one that recognizes and celebrates the extraordinary accomplishments or visions of ordinary people. Thom Clark, Executive Director of Community Media Workshop commended Mitch and said that it was a very competitive selection because there were so many high quality nominations across all media, print, audio and video.
As a Groundswell intern, Mitch has been assisting with the production of our “What Changed” webisode series which raises questions about President Obama’s anti-war stance.
Groundswell co-founder Jeff Spitz writes:

Mitch is the kind of student that Studs Terkel would adore. He’s a real listener, a creative artist and a community builder. Mitch is a documentary artist who has learned how to give voice to others. In the case of his short doc film, Joey and Jamal: A Chicago Public School Story, the voices come from a modest African American family that is speaking truth to power. Mitch focuses on two brothers and their mom as they figure out the ways that they learn best and keep out of harms way in a school system saturated with violence. The film raises profound questions about the hopes, dreams and tactics of Chicago school kids and their parents.

Read more about the film and Mitch’s award at the Community Media Workshop.

Lorenzo Begay (the narrator of “The Return of Navajo Boy“) and his wife, Mary, have a gift shop in Monument Valley. In this video, Mary can be seen selling DVDs to tourists.

This short documentary about Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and his legacy was produced by Groundswell’s Jeff Spitz for the Chicago History Museum in 2003.

Lowrider is a short film about Chicago’s Latino car culture which Groundswell produced for the Chicago History Museum. The video now plays in a loop in the museum’s lobby. It has also been viewed more than 620,000 times on YouTube since 2007.

The Return of Navajo Boy has unlocked an investigative LA Times series about the affects of uranium mining on Navajos.

Fifty years ago, cancer rates on the reservation were so low that a medical journal published an article titled “Cancer immunity in the Navajo.”
Back then, the contamination of the tribal homeland was just beginning. Mining companies were digging into one of the world’s richest uranium deposits, in a reservation spanning parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were chiseled and blasted from the mountains and plains. The mines provided uranium for the Manhattan Project, the top-secret effort to develop an atomic bomb, and for the weapons stockpile built up during the arms race with the Soviet Union.
[…]
Today, there is no talk of cancer immunity in the Navajos.
The cancer death rate on the reservation — historically much lower than that of the general U.S. population — doubled from the early 1970s to the late 1990s, according to Indian Health Service data. The overall U.S. cancer death rate declined slightly over the same period.

Read more here.

The New York Times has published an article about Navajos living on uranium contaminated lands, and the growing awareness about this problem:

Many miners died from radiation-related illnesses; some, unaware of harmful health effects, hauled contaminated rocks and tailings from local mines and mills to build homes for their families.
Now, those homes are being demolished and rebuilt under a new government program that seeks to identify what are very likely dozens of uranium-contaminated structures still standing on Navajo land and to temporarily relocate people living in them until the homes can be torn down and rebuilt.
Stephen B. Etsitty, executive director of the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, and other tribal officials have been grappling for years with the environmental fallout from uranium mining.
“There were a lot of things people weren’t told about the plight of Navajos and uranium mining,” Mr. Etsitty said. “These legacy issues are impacting generations. At some point people are saying, ‘It’s got to end.’ ”

Check out the full article here.

“The Return of Navajo Boy” will be screened on November 18th at The American Indian Christian Mission on November 18th, 2009. For more information about this screening, please contact the AICM.

“The Return of Navajo Boy” will be screened at The University of Chicago on November 10th, 2009. More information about the panel discussion and the screening are available at the university website.

The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) will host a special screening of Groundswell Educational Film’s award winning documentary “The Return of Navajo Boy” November 9th from 3PM to 5PM. The event, featuring documentary filmmaker Jeff Spitz and other panelists, will be held at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum’s Residence Dining Hall at 800 S Halstead Street in Chicago.
The screening, hosted by UIC’s Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, is part of a series of events celebrating Native American Heritage Month. UIC students can learn more about this scheduled event on the University calendar.
“The Return of Navajo Boy,” an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival and PBS, is now available on DVD with a recently updated epilogue (individual discounts also available).

“The Return of Navajo Boy” was screened on November 5, 2009 as part of The University of Miami (Ohio)’s Native American Film Festival. For more information about this event, please visit the U of M’s website.

The Robben Island Singers school program was recently featured on ABC 7 News in Chicago. They reported on how the Singers, in conjunction with Groundswell Educational Films, are visiting Chicago Public Schools to teach important life lessons about conflict resolution through art and forgiveness.
If you look closely, you can see our documentary film crew in the background of this news segment.

Indigenous uranium activists from all over the United States will gather from October 22nd through the 24th at The Southwest Indigenous Uranium Forum in Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico.
Activists plan to use Groundswell Educational Films’ documentary, “The Return of Navajo Boy” with its new 15 minute epilogue as a tool to advance the campaign for toxic waste cleanup (DVD available for sale, individual discount available). Elsie Mae Begay, the Navajo grandmother who tells her family’s story in The Return of Navajo Boy, will present the film and participate in audience discussion. The screening is scheduled for Friday, October 23rd starting at 7PM.
Among the other attendees will be about a dozen Navajo grandmothers who recently demonstrated on the steps of Capitol Hill calling for compensation for the families of uranium-mining victims.
The forum, organized by Anna Rondon, is the 7th annual event bringing together Native American uranium activists working towards environmental justice. Conference organizers can be reached by calling (505) 726-9392 or by visiting www.siuf.net.

Navajo uranium activist Gillbert Badoni, Navajo Nation Council Member Phil Harrison and a delegation of Navajo grandmothers demonstrated at the Capitol today to demand compensation for families poisoned by cold-war uranium mining on Navajo Nation.
“We screened our film, The Return of Navajo Boy for legislators, government staff and the public,” said Navajo grandmother Elsie May Cly Begay, “so they can understand the deep impact of uranium poisoning in our community.” For more on this action, visit the UMCGBCS website.

Chicago-area teachers and administrators love the Robben Island Singers school program.
Phillips High School principal Euel Bunton had this to say after Robben Island Singer Grant Shezi visited his school:

“You promised that this would be a memorable experience, and it truly was. Grant Shezi’s personal testimony was compelling and credible to our students. He struck a cord with students when he identified self control as the character trait that enabled him to overcome the desire for revenge and violence. Many, many more of our youth desperately need to hear this man and his message. I wholeheartedly endorse efforts to bring Robben Island Singers to the Chicago Public Schools on an expanded basis.”

CPS Director of Policy and Program Development Diane Fager says:

“Looking at the lessons learned in South Africa, the Robben Island Singers offer students a third dimension to reflect, and a new light to examine their own experience. Students are invited to express their revelations through the arts, and the Robben Island Singers help students learn to facilitate a new dialog in their own communities. Sure their curriculum lines up with state learning standards in many subject areas, but the Robben Island Singers are much more than that. They teach students to think critically about what they have learned; to communicate their ideas to one another across cultures using visual, performing or media arts; and that they have the power to organize and mobilize their communities towards a better future.”

Check out what students have to say about The Robben Island Singers school program.

Charles, from Kenwood Academy High School enjoyed The Robben Island Singers visit to his school:
“I’m not from a prestigious neighborhood. I’m from what you would maybe call a bad neighborhood. So these singers were a real inspiration. Their songs signify hope.”
Jasmine from Michelle Clark High School has this to say about The Robben Island Singers when they visited her school:
“This whole experience, I am just overwhelmed by it. I love the entire notion of history and heritage and getting to know it and actually playing a part in it. I believe we are kind of making history right now.”
Here are some questions that students have asked The Robben Island Singers when they do Q&A sessions in classrooms:

• Is there ever a time you regret standing up for your beliefs because of the consequences that followed?
• How old were you when you went to prison?
• You all have become an inspiration to many young people today. Who inspires/inspired you to fight against injustice?
• At what point in your struggle did you feel that your anger and pain should have been replaced by action and a revolution through song?
• Do you feel that it frees you to forgive someone who has wronged you?
• Did you find it difficult to re-adjust to freedom when you got out?
• Did a lot of ex-prisoners have trouble getting jobs after they were freed because they had to leave High School?
• How much racism is still left in South America even after apartheid?
• Do you think that your message is ignored by people who don’t acknowledge the past?
• Will you guys be back next year?

Check out what teachers have to say about The Robben Island Singers school program.

In September 2008, Groundswell brought Elsie Mae Begay and the The Return of Navajo Boy (with its new epilogue) to Capitol Hill for a screening and discussion about hazardous waste cleanup with EPA officials and congressional staffers.
Watch more Return of Navajo Boy webisodes.

About a year after their initial radioactivity investigation, the US Environmental Protection Agency demolished Elsie Mae Begay’s highly-contaminated hogan. EPA consultant Andrew Sowder is seen at the end of this clip suggesting that the agency should construct fencing or a sign around the area to protect local residents from further contamination.
Watch more Return of Navajo Boy webisodes.

The story of Elsie Mae Begay is featured prominently in our documentary The Return of Navajo Boy; her home was partially constructed out of uranium rocks from an abandoned mine nearby. Around the same time our film was making its premiere, the EPA investigated her home to see how dangerous it might be. The above video is from an official EPA videotape of the investigation, obtained by Groundswell through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Watch more Return of Navajo Boy webisodes.