10:00 am

 

Prayer Offering
Introduction by Anna Rondon
Swiftbird Drum, Taos NM, AIM Song 

Welcome speech by honorable Crystalyne Curley,  25th Navajo Nation Council Speaker  

 

10:20 am

 

USA, 2000, Directed by Diné Shonie De La Rosa, Experimental Music Video, 7 min.

An experimental video about what uranium from the Navajo Nation was really used for. www.sheepheadfilms.com

Presented by Shonie De La Rosa

 

THE RIVER THAT HARMS 
USA, 1987, Directed by Colleen Keane, Documentary, 45 min. 

This illuminating film documents the largest radioactive waste spill in U.S. history - a national tragedy that received little attention. With the sound of a thunderclap, 94 million gallons of water contaminated with uranium mining waste broke through a United Nuclear Corporation storage dam in 1979. The water poured into the Puerco River in New Mexico - the main water supply for the Navajo that live along the river, and a tributary of the major source of water for Los Angeles. Navajo ranchers, their children, and farm animals waded through the river unaware of the danger.

Presented by Joanna Keane Lopez and Damacio Lopez, Depleted Uranium activist & author of the booklet „My last Battle: Ban Uranium Weapons“

 

11:20 am

 

11:30 pm

 

USA, 2025, Director: Kayla Briët, Producer: Adriel Luis, Sunny Dooley, Lovely Umayam, Writer: Lovely Umayam, Documentary, 23 min.

The American Southwest is a sprawling, mysterious landscape that holds a dark legacy as the setting for the production of the first nuclear bomb. But this place holds a deeper and more profound history – for millennia, Navajo and other Indigenous peoples have held this area sacred, and continue to fight for the survival of their land and culture despite decades of environmental and community trauma. Here, storytellers, scholars, artists, and community organizers have dedicated their lives to a future that transcends the shadow of nuclear history. This is their story. www.waysofknowing.us

Presented by Sunny Dooley / Q & A

 

12:30 pm

 

THE VOW FROM HIROSHIMA 

 

USA, 2021, Director & Producer Susan Strickler, Writer & Producer Mitchie Takeuchi, Documentary, English, 82 min. 

The Vow From Hiroshima is an intimate portrait of Setsuko Thurlow, a passionate survivor of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. She was 13 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Her moving story is told through the lens of her growing friendship with a second-generation survivor, Mitchie Takeuchi. Setsuko was miraculously pulled out of a fiery building after the bomb was dropped and unable to save her other 27 classmates who were burned to death alive. That experience shaped her life forever and she endeavored to keep a pledge she made to her friends - that no one should ever again experience the same horrible fate. The film follows Setsuko through her decades of activism up to the current moment when she finally achieves her dream of a Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty. www.thevowfromhiroshima.com

 

2:00 pm

 

 

USA, 2025, Director Casey Carter, Producers:  Colleen Cassingham, Jonna McKone, Documentary, 99 min. 

In 1982, the United States began their search for a landfill site for their most dangerous nuclear waste. The Department for Energy at the time preselected six sites across the country. Each of these areas were studied and documented in detail, and their residents consulted. The film, which adopts an observational yet sensitive tone, offers us a topography of these sites and their residents. In Texas, Utah, Mississippi, Nevada, the communities excavate memories of their confrontations with the administration, as well as the distress and outcry that these caused. The film travels across America goes back in time, reminding us that these lands were originally stolen from their first occupants, as we rediscover the intimate links between nuclear, civil and military powers.

 

3:50 pm

 

 

USA, 2025, Directed, shot and edited by Ella Warnick, English, 17 min.

In southeastern Utah, just a few miles upstream of the White Mesa Ute Mountain Ute Tribal reservation, sits the last operating uranium mill in the United States. The Long Fight tells the story of one family's decades-long resistance to the mill and its toxic reign over their ancestral homeland.  www.ellawarnick.com

Presented by Ella Warnick / Q & A

 

4:30 pm

 

 

USA, 2025, Directed by Guy Morgan, Documentary, 77 min., English & Navajo.

The United nation calls the genocide. We call it every day life.  The film follows a small group of Dine’/Navajo families, fighting to hold onto their land, heritage and beliefs. This… is their story. Their voices... seen through their eyes. A window into the past is also a look into all our futures. Their struggle... is our struggle, as the world faces ‘Global Climate Change, Corporate Greed and Government Inaction. www.ifthesilencecouldbebroken.net

Presented by Guy Morgan /  Q & A

 

6:20 pm

 

 

10:00 am

 

 

10:20

 

 

USA, 2025, Director Riley Fitchpatrick, Documentary, 20 min.

A filmmaker returns to his hometown Oak Ridge, TN, the secret city that built the atomic bomb. There he meets the workers who created humanity's greatest weapon that now wrestle with their legacy, while their grandchildren inherit a world on the brink of nuclear catastrophe. Riley Fitchpatrick: „My family came to Oak Ridge in the very beginning. When the town was founded my Great Granddad was brought in to help lay the first foundations of the city it would become and we’ve been here ever since. Growing up in Oak Ridge means that you’re inundated with the town’s history - founded for a secret government project to build the world’s first atomic bombs. www.applehousepictures.com

11:00 am

 

 

USA, 2024, Director: Jeff Gipe, Documentary, 55 min.

In the suburbs of Denver, the U.S. secretly manufactured thousands of atomic weapons, leaving behind a toxic legacy that will persist for generations. The Rocky Flats plant produced a staggering 70,000 atomic bombs, each serving as a “trigger” for thermonuclear warheads. Concealed by government secrecy, the plant's fires, leaks, and illicit dumping of nuclear waste contaminated the Denver area with long-lived radioactive toxins. A major plutonium fire sparked a decade of mass protests, culminating in an unprecedented FBI raid that ultimately shuttered the plant. Today, the radioactive legacy of Rocky Flats continues to threaten public health, yet surprisingly few people are aware the plant ever existed. „Half-Life of Memory“ exposes Rocky Flats' dark past and enduring impact, prompting critical reflection on the implications of the nation’s renewed nuclear weapons buildup and ongoing construction of a new "trigger" factory.  www.halflifeofmemory.com

Presented by Jeff Gipe and Jon Lipsky  / Q & A

 

12.30 pm

 

Delicious indigenous food

 

2:00 pm

 

 

USA, 2023, Director: Nathan Fitch, Producer: Angela Edward, Documentary, English, 12 min.

In Exile explores the US nuclear legacy in the Pacific through the lens of members of the Marshallese community in Arkansas. The Marshallese were told their islands in Micronesia were essential for the good of mankind for Operation Crossroads, a series of nuclear tests in Bikini Atoll commencing in 1946. In a highly choreographed scene photographed by an array of military cameras, the Marshallese begin the process of leaving their home islands for an exile that has now lasted 77 years. They could not know that their islands would be vaporized, their waters poisoned, and their bodies used as test subjects by the US government. www.nathan-fitch.com

Taiwaste 

 

Germany / Taiwan, 2022, Director: Patrik Thomas, Producer: The Random Collective, Arthouse Fiction/Satire, Chinese, English subtitles, 25 min.

As nuclear powered country, Taiwan is constantly facing the issue on how to deal with its nuclear waste. In the late 1970s, Taiwans government decided to store parts of its nuclear waste on Orchid Island, 65km off Taiwan’s southeast coast, home of the Yami people who lived for centuries as an isolated tribe. Being tricked by the government, the tribal chief signed a contract to built a “fish cannery“, which turned out to be a nuclear waste storage site. Now,  after more than 30 years of protest by the yami people, the government has a new plan: Every Taiwanese citizen who is using electricity is responsible for the nuclear waste produced and has to store it at home. www.patrikthomas.de

Presented by Patrik Thomas / Q & A

 

3:00 pm

 

 

USA/Mexico, 2023, Director Pedro Reyes Alvarez, Documentary, 24 min. 

The film examines the ongoing legacy of nuclear violence in the American Southwest, where uranium extraction and nuclear testing have left deep scars on both the land and its people. Featuring voices like Leona Morgan, a Diné anti-nuclear activist, the film reminds us that nuclear energy and nuclear weapons are inseparable—a fact that remains dangerously overlooked. Alongside her, other community members speak about the destruction of their environment, the health crises that continue to afflict their people, and their resistance to the mining of sacred lands. Under the Cloud is a short documentary that examines the ongoing legacy of nuclear violence in the American Southwest, where uranium extraction and nuclear testing have left deep scars on both the land and its people.

Presented by Leona Morgan / Q & A

 

4:00 pm

__________________________________________

 

 

10:00 am 

 

 

6:00 pm

 

 

USA, 2025, Director Casey Carter, Producers:  Colleen Cassingham, Jonna McKone, Documentary, 99 min.

In 1982, the United States began their search for a landfill site for their most dangerous nuclear waste. The Department for Energy at the time preselected six sites across the country. Each of these areas were studied and documented in detail, and their residents consulted. The film, which adopts an observational yet sensitive tone, offers us a topography of these sites and their residents. In Texas, Utah, Mississippi, Nevada, the communities excavate memories of their confrontations with the administration, as well as the distress and outcry that these caused. The film travels across America goes back in time, reminding us that these lands were originally stolen from their first occupants, as we rediscover the intimate links between nuclear, civil and military powers.

Q & A

 

8:00 pm

 

 

Germany/France, 2025, Directors: Dirk van den Berg and Pascal Verroust, produced by Dirk van den Berg / OutreMer Film with ZDF & ZDF Studios, Documentary, English, 104 minutes

80 years after the atomic bombs and the beginning of the Cold War, the fear of nuclear war is back. Does Europe need more nuclear independence today? Must we re-define nuclear deterrence? Will old and new superpowers force their will upon the rest of the world by "protecting" conventional wars with their nuclear arsenals? And, do we even have the political vocabulary for a new world order that threatens to end the long peace since the end of the last World War – or are we already in a new war?

 

SILENT WAR debunks the narratives about atomic bombs, nuclear deterrence and the Cold War, in occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima attack in 2025.SILENT WAR is based on groundbreaking research by nuclear historian Robert "Bo"Jacobs, and his book "Nuclear Bodies", acclaimed as one of the most important contributions to the history of atomic weapons and the Cold War.  https://silentwar.outremerfilm.com/silentwar.html

Q & A

 

 

5:00 pm - 6:00 pm

 

 

USA/Mexico, 2023, Director Pedro Reyes Alvarez, Documentary, 24 min. 

The film examines the ongoing legacy of nuclear violence in the American Southwest, where uranium extraction and nuclear testing have left deep scars on both the land and its people. Featuring voices like Leona Morgan, a Diné anti-nuclear activist, the film reminds us that nuclear energy and nuclear weapons are inseparable—a fact that remains dangerously overlooked. Alongside her, other community members speak about the destruction of their environment, the health crises that continue to afflict their people, and their resistance to the mining of sacred landsUnder the Cloud is a short documentary that examines the ongoing legacy of nuclear violence in the American Southwest, where uranium extraction and nuclear testing have left deep scars on both the land and its people.

 

 

USA, 2025, Director: Kayla Briët, Producer: Adriel Luis, Sunny Dooley, Lovely Umayam, Writer: Lovely Umayam, Documentary, 23 min.

The American Southwest is a sprawling, mysterious landscape that holds a dark legacy as the setting for the production of the first nuclear bomb. But this place holds a deeper and more profound history – for millennia, Navajo and other Indigenous peoples have held this area sacred, and continue to fight for the survival of their land and culture despite decades of environmental and community trauma. Here, storytellers, scholars, artists, and community organizers have dedicated their lives to a future that transcends the shadow of nuclear history. This is their story. www.waysofknowing.us

Q & A

 

6:00 pm

 

 

USA, 2023, Director: Nathan Fitch, Producer: Angela Edward, Documentary, English, 12 min.

In Exile explores the US nuclear legacy in the Pacific through the lens of members of the Marshallese community in Arkansas. The Marshallese were told their islands in Micronesia were essential for the good of mankind for Operation Crossroads, a series of nuclear tests in Bikini Atoll commencing in 1946. In a highly choreographed scene photographed by an array of military cameras, the Marshallese begin the process of leaving their home islands for an exile that has now lasted 77 years. They could not know that their islands would be vaporized, their waters poisoned, and their bodies used as test subjects by the US government. www.nathan-fitch.com

 

 

USA, 2024, Director: Jeff Gipe, Documentary, 55 min.

In the suburbs of Denver, the U.S. secretly manufactured thousands of atomic weapons, leaving behind a toxic legacy that will persist for generations. The Rocky Flats plant produced a staggering 70,000 atomic bombs, each serving as a “trigger” for thermonuclear warheads. Concealed by government secrecy, the plant's fires, leaks, and illicit dumping of nuclear waste contaminated the Denver area with long-lived radioactive toxins. 

 

A major plutonium fire sparked a decade of mass protests, culminating in an unprecedented FBI raid that ultimately shuttered the plant. Today, the radioactive legacy of Rocky Flats continues to threaten public health, yet surprisingly few people are aware the plant ever existed. „Half-Life of Memory“ exposes Rocky Flats' dark past and enduring impact, prompting critical reflection on the implications of the nation’s renewed nuclear weapons buildup and ongoing construction of a new "trigger" factory.  www.halflifeofmemory.com

Q  &  A

 

8:00 pm - 9:00 pm

 

 

USA, 2025, Director and Producer Peter Matulavich, Documentary, 21 min.

The film is based on the findings of Japanese and American medical teams dispatched to Hiroshima in the days and weeks following the bombing. It depicts the utter chaos and nearly indescribable horror experienced there. Peter Matulavich: „With `The Horrors of Hiroshima´ I wanted to depict, in unflinching detail, the horrific medical and physical effects of the Hiroshima bombing as reported by the first Japanese and American personnel to enter the city.“ 

 

 

Japan/USA, 1995/2025, Directors & Producers: Chris Beaver & Judy Irving, Digital Restoration: Gary Coates, Documentary, English/Japanese, 30 min.

Produced by Emmy Award-winning filmmakers, Nagasaki Journey is a powerful, yet hopeful look at the immediate and continuing aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped August 9, 1945, on Nagasaki, Japan. The film tells the moving personal stories of two Japanese survivors and a U.S. Marine, who was one of the first American troops to occupy the city after the war ended. They reveal how the impact of this single bomb forever transformed their lives and their thinking. Despite the enormous wartime tragedy, their common humanity transcended previous hatreds, providing hope the Nagasaki bomb would be the last atomic weapon dropped in warfare. cbfilms.net

Q & A

 

 

5.00 pm - 6:00 pm

 

 

USA, 2025, Directed, shot, and edited by Ella Warnick, English, 17 min.

In southeastern Utah, just a few miles upstream of the White Mesa Ute Mountain Ute Tribal reservation, sits the last operating uranium mill in the United States. The Long Fight tells the story of one family's decades-long resistance to the mill and its toxic reign over their ancestral homeland.  

 

Director Ella Warnick  is a student at the University of Utah, where she studies environmental sustainability and documentary filmmaking. She currently resides in Salt Lake City, but spends her free time chasing desert towers and slot canyons in southeast Utah. Ella hopes to preserve these unique places by sharing the stories of those who call them home. She believes character-driven documentaries are the best way to communicate environmental justice issues within the scope of land and resource management.  www.ellawarnick.com

 

 

Germany / Taiwan, 2022, Director: Patrik Thomas, Producer: The Random Collective, Arthouse Fiction/Satire, Chinese, English subtitles, 25 min.

As nuclear powered country, Taiwan is constantly facing the issue on how to deal with its nuclear waste. In the late 1970s, Taiwans government decided to store parts of its nuclear waste on Orchid Island, 65km off Taiwan’s southeast coast, home of the Yami people who lived for centuries as an isolated tribe. Being tricked by the government, the tribal chief signed a contract to built a “fish cannery“, which turned out to be a nuclear waste storage site. Now,  after more than 30 years of protest by the yami people, the government has a new plan: Every Taiwanese citizen who is using electricity is responsible for the nuclear waste produced and has to store it at home. www.patrikthomas.de

Q and A with Patrik Thomas and Ella Warnick

 

6:00 pm

 

 

Australia, 2015, Produced and Directed by Kim Mavromatis and Quenten Agius, MAV Media in Association with NITV (National Indigenous TV Australia). Documentary, 5 min

In the 1950’s and 1960’s the Australian government authorised British Nuclear testing at Emu Field and Maralinga in Outback South Australia. We journey with Antikirrinya Elder, Ingkama Bobby Brown to his homelands in outback South Australia where he explains the legacy of living with British Nuclear testing - how he witnessed the first tests on the Australian mainland at Emu Field (1953) and experienced the devastating affects of radioactive fallout on his family, people and country. This is the first time Bobby has spoken out about what he witnessed when he was a boy - what happened to his family and country and the people who went missing - during British Nuclear testing. 

 

 

 

France, 2016, Director Larbi Benchiha, production: Aligal production and France Télévisions, documentary, French, English subtitles, 52 min.

Excellent documentary about France's atomic bomb tests in the South Pacific at the Mururoa atoll. The filmmaker allows the surviving atomic tests veterans to speak up. They unknowingly irradiated themselves and their families.  

 

"My biggest regret is to have contaminated my daughters, and may be my grandchildren“, says atomic bomb veteran Florence Bourel. She had stayed several times at the atomic bases of Moruroa. Her daughter Marion, 22 years, it suffers from several radiation-induced diseases and cancer. Like her mother, she is also afraid of the future: "... and if I have children, will they be healthy?“ Florence was proud to work for the good of France. There, in the blue lagoon where the bombs exploded, she was diving and water skiing. "The hierarchy has never mentioned any risks. They only said we should not eat fish from the lagoon and wipe with a sarong and not a towel.“

Q & A

 

7:30 pm

 

 

USA, 2025, Director Greg Mitchell, Documentary, 52 min. / www.gregmitchphoto.com

There have been numerous films on The Bomb, even one or two about Nagasaki,  but “The Atomic Bowl: Football at Ground Zero — and Nuclear Peril Today” is unique, and with many lessons and warnings for today–as nuclear dangers proliferate and civilian casualties in wars climb even higher. This football showdown featured college and pro stars, on January 1, 1946, and in Nagasaki, near ground zero for the second atomic bomb, which killed over 80,000 just a few weeks earlier.  

The film, narrated by Peter Coyote, is not only the first full first-hand account of the game, but a provocative and disturbing story of the decision to drop a second atomic bomb just three days after Hiroshima–and the dangerous message to today’s leaders. 

 

“A master storyteller  and urgent reminder of the terrors of nuclear war.   Necessary viewing.” Charles P. Pierce, Esquire 

“A great movie–a hidden chapter in atomic history revealed.” Jayne Loader, co-director of The Atomic Cafe

“A riveting film, and the topic couldn’t be more urgent. The Atomic Bowl is terrific, and it’s remarkable how much you convey, and how powerfully you convey it, in less than an hour’s running time.” David Sterritt, former chair, National Society of Film Critics.

“Today’s nuclear tensions make Mitchell’s storytelling more timely than ever.” Will Bunch, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Q and A with Greg Mitchell

 

LAS VEGAS VENUE 

 

Downtown Cinemas, formerly The Art Houz Theaters, 

is Las Vegas' "hometown" movie theater located in the 

heart of Downtown. 

814 S 3rd St.

Las Vegas, NV 89101

 

 

Uranium Film Festival 2018 in Window Rock at Navajo Nation Museum with Festival Director

Márcia Gomes de Oliveira (right), Anna Marie Rondon, New Mexico Social Justice and Equity Institute Executive Director

and Radmilla Cody, GRAMMY-nominated Navajo recording artist.