Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, March 31: YELLOW FEVER
Sophie Rousmaniere’s investigation of the impact of uranium mining on the Navajo debuted via a screening tour of the Navajo Nation in August 2013. Other screenings have included Vision maker, Native Spirit, American Conservation, LA Skins, and the International Uranium film fests.
Rousamaniere’s guide is Tina Garnanez, a young Navajo woman and US Army veteran, who returns home trying to cope with PTSD. When she discovers that multiple family members have died from cancer that could be traced back to radiation exposure from uranium mining, she sets out to explore the dangerous nuclear legacy on her people, as well as the controversy around the potential restarting of mining on Navajo lands. The generally conventional film is most compelling when it keeps its focus on the historical exploitation of the Navajo, who, despite possessing one of the world’s richest stores of uranium, have never benefited financially, and instead seem fated to once again pay for their land with their lives. Rousamaniere unfortunately often follows unrelated threads about Garnanez’s PTSD and other personal matters, which prove an unnecessary distraction from the core story, weakening it as a whole.
what (not) to doc 