In the Light of Reverence

Across the USA, the struggle over sacred sites on public and private land continues for Native Americans of different tribes.  This film portrait of land-use conflicts for three of those tribes, the Lakota of the Great Plains, the Hopi of the Four Corners area, and the Wintu of northern California, is hauntingly portrayed in In the Light of Reverence. 

Religious freedom, highly valued in America, is not guaranteed to those who practice land-based religion, director Christopher McLeod says.  Every year, more sacred sites - the land-based equivalent of the world's great cathedrals - are being destroyed.  Strip mining and development cause much of the destruction.  But rock climbers, tourists, and New Age religious practitioners are also part of the problem.  The biggest problem, as McLeod discovered, is ignorance.