Cine Las Americas Film Festival: Trespassing

*This review comes from new Austinist contributor Joey Seiler.*

Trespassing, the first feature-length documentary directed by Carlos DeMenezes, follows the Western Shoshone’s fight against an attempt to turn the Ward Valley in California into a nuclear dumping ground. The debate began almost eight years ago, but the real story of displacement and ecological apathy remains sadly relevant.

DeMenezes shapes the nuclear protest into a frame to discuss everything from the sovereignty of indigenous people and their cultures to endangered tortoises and repairing our relationship with the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. True, all of these are affected by the process that produces nuclear waste. But at times, Trespassing, feels like a litany of, however earnest and important, only tangentially related stories.

Regardless, Trespassing is worthwhile viewing if only for information: the hearing in D.C. where Steve Lopez, de facto protagonist and coordinator for the Native Nations Alliance, finally gets a chance to speak is subtitled “No Press Attended.”

Also, we kid you not, protest songs set to accordion. Just that is worth the price of admission.

Trespassing, screens this Saturday at the Cine Las Americas film festival.

Tresspassing
Cine Las Americas Film Festival
Saturday, April 22 @ 2 PM
Metropolitan Theater
Tickets