Jun 21
Ouray International Film Festival Ouray, CO
TicketsColleen Thurston
Filmmaker; Educator
andDr. Michael Kiparsky
Director of the Wheeler Water Institute, Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, UC Berkeley School of Law
andTanya Ishikawa
Executive Director of Uncompahgre Watershed Partnership
Drowned Land— Raising water awareness in Colorado through Native, scientific, and legal perspectives
Program Description
Here in Southwest Colorado, water is a scarce resource at the center of highly contentious political debates. How can we chart a path toward sustainable water use informed by scientific, legal, and cultural perspectives? Filmmaker Colleen Thurston's film Drowned Land addresses these questions by documenting the work of Native, legal, and scientific communities working to protect the Kiamichi River, a bastion of eco-diversity located in the Choctaw Nation. After the screening, Thurston will be in conversation with Dr. Michael Kiparsky (an expert on water law) and Tanya Ishikawa (executive director of local non-profit Uncompahgre Watershed Partnership). Join the conversation as we learn from these different perspectives to help inform local and national strategies for water conservation in the years to come.
Film Synopsis
DROWNED LAND explores Choctaw Nation's reckoning with territorial rights and community impact through a depiction of the Kiamichi River preservation fight amidst Indigenous land loss cycle.
Winding its way through southeastern Oklahoma, the Kiamichi River is a bastion of eco-diversity. Already twice-dammed, the state of Oklahoma and a Texas corporation continue to try to commodify the remaining water, and build a hydropower plant on the small river. For a group of locals, this isn’t just a fight for a river, it is a lifelong reckoning with the cycle of land theft and displacement that began with the Trail of Tears. Now, in a region in which the community relies on the Kiamichi’s ecosystem for subsistence, taking the water out of the watershed could mean yet another relocation.
The narrative arc follows the river as its main character—witnessing the ebb and flow of its life-giving ability through the seasons, and the detrimental impact caused by damming and development projects. The director, Colleen, explores the effects of her grandfather's work designing dams for the Army Corps of Engineers, her tribe’s ongoing struggles with resource exploitation, and how it shapes her reconciliation of the past with the present.
Interwoven are the stories of the river’s advocates—residents, Choctaw culture-keepers and scientists—who have come together to save the river and initiate a paradigm shift grounded in ideals of rematriation and rights of Nature, reinforcing a commitment to end the cycle of disconnection from our land.
About the Speaker
Colleen Thurston is a filmmaker, curator and educator from Tulsa, Oklahoma and recipient of the the Creative Capital Award in 2024. Colleen has produced for the Smithsonian Channel, Vox, illumiNATIVE and museums, public television stations, and federal and tribal organizations. Her work has been supported by ITVS, Vision Maker Media, Firelight Media, Nia Tero, NEH, the Redford Center, Patagonia and the Sundance Institute, screened at international film festivals and the Smithsonian Institution, and been broadcast nationwide. Colleen has served as the co-Executive Director of the Fayetteville Film Festival, the Film Programming Assistant at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the founding Director of Programming of Tulsa American Film Festival and is currently a programmer for Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and Make Believe Film Festival. She has curated film programs for the Momentary (Bentonville, AR), SWAIA’s Native Cinema Showcase (Santa Fe, NM), UCLA Film and Television Archive (Los Angeles, CA) and the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC). She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Oklahoma, and serves as the Project Producer for Native Lens, an Indigenous digital series for Rocky Mountain PBS and KSUT Tribal Radio. Colleen is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Dr. Michael Kiparsky is the founding Director of the Wheeler Water Institute within the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Under his leadership, the Institute has grown into a widely recognized voice on a range of California water issues. Dr. Kiparsky has worked on technical and policy aspects of water resources management for 20 years, and his primary interest lies at their intersection. He has published scholarly articles and technical reports on a range of topics including governance and policy of complex water systems, climate change impacts and adaptation, water innovation, and science for decision-making. He is regularly interviewed by media outlets, and his quotes and op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, Scientific American, Nature, The Guardian, National Public Radio, and many others. Through his engagement activities, his work is regularly used by state and local decision-makers. He was previously on the faculty at the University of Idaho, and has experience in consulting, non-profit, and agency settings. Dr. Kiparsky earned an A.B. in Biology from Brown University and a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group, where he was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, a Udall Scholar, a CALFED Science Scholar, and the first ACWA Steve Hall Water Law & Policy Scholar.
Tanya Ishikawa is the executive director of Uncompahgre Watershed Partnership, a non-profit organization located in Southwest Colorado. In her role, Tanya collaborates with regional scientists in a range of settings. In September 2022, Tanya graduated from the Water Leaders program, a professional development program organized by Water Education Colorado. In addition to fundraising, Tanya works in mine remediation and riparian restoration projects alongside UWP Technical Coordinator Ashley Bembenek, as well as organizing cleanups, tree plantings, weed removal, water quality monitoring, and events.