Devil's Tower | Documentary
Directed by: Christopher McLeod
2001 | 30m | USA

"Across the USA, Native Americans are struggling to protect their sacred places. Religious freedom, so valued in America, is not guaranteed to those who practice land-based religion. 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 part of the problem, too. The biggest problem is ignorance.
"DEVILS TOWER, part of the IN THE LIGHT OF REVERENCE Classroom Series, tells the story of the Lakota, an indigenous community of the Great Plains, and the land they struggle to protect."

Screening Times: Whitaker Lab Auditorium
Wednesday, 5:00 pm / Friday, 9:00 pm

About the Director:
Christopher (Toby) McLeod (Director and co-producer) has a Masters Degree in Journalism from U.C. Berkeley and a B.A. in American history from Yale. He is a journalist who works in film, video, print, and still photography. In 1985, McLeod received a Guggenheim Fellowship for filmmaking, and his U.C. Berkeley masters thesis film Four Corners won a Student Academy Award in 1983. Toby has been working with indigenous communities as a filmmaker, journalist and photographer for more than thirty years.

Malinda M. Maynor (co-producer) is a Lumbee Indian from North Carolina, and her two previous films, Real Indian and Sounds of Faith, both concern Lumbee identity and culture. They have been shown nationwide in classrooms, at conferences, and at film festivals including the 1997 and 1998 Sundance Film Festival. She is also the recipient of a 2001 Rockefeller Film and Video Fellowship. Maynor has completed a web site and CD-ROM on Lumbee religious history, and is Professor of Native American History at Harvard University. She is also coordinating the Lumbee River Fund, a project to preserve Lumbee history and culture. She has a Bachelor’s degree in History and Literature from Harvard University and a Master’s degree in documentary film from Stanford.