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Arid Lands

Cert: (adv 12A)

Dir. Grant Aaker, Josh Wallaert
USA , 2007, 98 mins

Cast: Documentary with: John Jones, Russell Jim, Morris Uebelacker, Robert Kuhlken

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The short film Almost Blind will be shown before this film.

Informative, timely, educational and eye-opening, Arid Lands is the very polar opposite of a “dry” documentary. It's an exhaustive study of one specific corner of the USA – the area around the nuclear plant at Hanford, on the Columbia River in Washington State – which has wide-ranging implications for both the country as a whole and for the planet as mankind struggles to match our needs with available resources. As with fellow 2009 Uncharted States selections Brave New West and California Company Town, Arid Lands pays rewardingly close attention to the American landscape – yielding a thoughtful, visually striking and intellectually stimulating film that's must-see viewing for environmentalists and enviro-sceptics alike.

”For thousands of years,” we're told, “the arid lands of south-eastern Washington were home to the Yakama, Wanapum, Umatilla, Nez Perce, and other native people. They occupied a landscape of unbroken shrub-steppe vegetation and free-flowing rivers.” But in 1933, “the federal government began building dams on the Columbia for irrigation and hydropower. New occupants arrived, transforming millions of acres of sagebrus ...

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