Coming to Lone Pine: Fourth of Four FREE Screenings of “Manzanar Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust”

Friends of the Inyo is helping InterSection Films to promote MANZANAR, DIVERTED: WHEN WATER BECOMES DUST (84 mins), directed and produced by Ann Kaneko and produced by Jin Yoo-Kim, which is coming to Payahuunadü/Owens Valley, for four screenings in Lee Vining, Bishop, Big Pine and Lone Pine from July 7 – 10.  All screenings will be accompanied by a panel featuring local community organizers.

Sat., July 10, 2021

Tribal Gym, 975 Teya Road, Lone Pine

7:00 pm, Screening

8:30 pm Panel

Panel: Beverly Newell, Mary Roper, Lillian James, Ann Kaneko, Grace Newell (moderator)

This screening tour commemorates the July 1863 Forced March of Native Americans, when the U.S. Army assembled about 1,000 Nüümü and Newe men and women for removal to Ft. Tejon, approximately 200 miles away. Many people died of thirst in this cruel, high summer journey.

An inspired and poetic portrait of a place and its people, MANZANAR, DIVERTED: WHEN WATER BECOMES DUST follows intergenerational women from three communities who defend their land, their history and their culture from the insatiable thirst of Los Angeles. In this fresh retelling of the L.A. water story, Native Americans, Japanese-American WWII incarcerees and environmentalists form an unexpected alliance to preserve Payahuunadü (Owens Valley), “the land of flowing water.”

Featuring breathtaking photography and immersive soundscapes, the film recounts more than 150 years of history, showing how this distant valley is tied to the city of Los Angeles. It reveals the forced removals of two peoples–the Nüümü (Paiute) and the Newe (Shoshone) who were marched out of the Valley in the 1860s, and the Japanese Americans who were forcibly brought here from their West Coast homes and incarcerated in a World War II concentration camp: Manzanar.

The free screening tour follows the film’s world premiere at the critically acclaimed Big Sky Doc Film Fest, Midwestern premiere at One Earth Film Festival, Canadian premiere at DOXA International Film Festival and East Coast premiere at the DC International Film Festival (FilmFest DC). The film also screened at CAAMFest and the Milwaukee Film Festival where it received Honorable Mention nods. CAAMFest jurors praised it as: “a powerful documentary that explores vital topics including the devastating impact of climate change, water and land rights and intersectionality between the Asian American and Indigenous communities…an impressive film that equally entertains and educates.”

For more information, please write to manzanardiverted@gmail.com.