Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History

Mar 8, 2025

0h 22m

★ 0.0

Overview

The American Southwest holds a dark legacy as the place where nuclear weapons were invented and built. Navajo people have long held this place sacred, and continue to fight for a future that transcends historical trauma. This is their story.

Genres

Documentary

Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History Trailers

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Cast

Sunny Dooley

Tina Garnanez

Tommy Rock

Janene Yazzie

Bobby Leonard Mason

Based on testimony by Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass, the Rosenbergs are arrested by the FBI. The couple is accused of passing secret information about the atomic bomb to the USSR. Though the Rosenbergs maintain their innocence from the start, the media and public opinion seem to have condemned them from day one. The trial does nothing to change this and ends in a death sentence. On Friday June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed in the electric chair. Julius first, then Ethel. 30 years later, the truth finally comes out. Declassified FBI archives reveal that Ethel was not guilty of being a spy; she was merely married to one. Julius did indeed commit espionage for the Soviet Union, though primarily as a recruiter, nothing at all like the fictional James Bond. This documentary, made entirely of archival footage and animated illustrations, offers a tale of espionage as well as a complex family tragedy.

8.0

Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting

Jan 14, 2021

Examining the movement that is ending the use of Native American names, logos, and mascots in the world of sports and beyond.

0.0

Metal From The Dirt

Dec 4, 2018

A document of the originators of the DIY Rez Metal scene, and the bands that are now carrying the torch, including I Dont Konform, Mutilated Tyrant and Born of Winter. From a generator-powered show in the Arizona desert to a band practicing in a traditional Navajo dwelling called a Hogan, this story — told by Navajo ("Diné") bands and individuals involved in the scene — explores the creation of Rez Metal in the Eighties, the juxtaposition of old and new Navajo traditions and the link between heavy metal and native pride.

4.6

The Journey

Feb 24, 1987

Peter Watkins' global look at the impact of military use of nuclear technology and people's perception of it, as well as a meditation on the inherent bias of the media, and documentaries themselves.

8.0

The Shaman's Apprentice

May 27, 2001

Scientist Mark Plotkin races against time to save the ancient healing knowledge of Indian tribes from extinction.

7.5

Homeland

Oct 20, 2000

Following four Lakota families over three years, Homeland explores what it takes for the Lakota community to build a better future in the face of tribal and government corruption, scarce housing, unemployment, and alcoholism. Intimate interviews with a spiritual leader, a grandmother, an artist, and a community activist from South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation reveal how each survives through family ties, cultural tradition, humor, and a palpable yearning for self-reliance and personal freedom.

7.6

Inside Chernobyl with Ben Fogle

Mar 3, 2021

Ben Fogle spends a week living inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, gaining privileged access to the doomed Control Room 4 where the disaster first began to unfold.

0.0

Seabrook 1977

Jan 1, 1978

In April 1977, the small coastal town of Seabrook, New Hampshire became an international symbol in the battle over atomic energy. Concerned about the dangers of potential radioactive accidents, over 2,000 members of the Clamshell Alliance, a coalition of environmental groups, attempted to block construction of a nuclear power plant. 1,414 people were arrested in that civil disobedience protest and jailed en masse in National Guard armories for two weeks.

7.5

Inside Chernobyl's Mega Tomb

Dec 21, 2016

Documentary which follows the construction of a trailblazing 36,000-tonne steel structure to entomb the ruins of the nuclear power plant destroyed in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

0.0

Foundational Black American

Invalid Date

Uncover the hidden history of Foundational Black Americans and Black Indians-present before Columbus and vital to building the U.S.-in this powerful documentary that reclaims a buried legacy.

0.0

In Whose Honor?

Jul 15, 1997

Washington Redskins, Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves — Indian mascots and nicknames have historically been first draft picks in American sports. But for Charlene Teters, a Spokane Indian, transplanting cultural rituals onto the field is a symbol of disrespect. Jay Rosenstein follows Teters' evolution from mother and student into a leading voice against the merchandising of Native American symbols — and shows the lengths fans will go to preserve their mascots.

6.2

A Compassionate Spy

Aug 31, 2022

Physicist Ted Hall is recruited to join the Manhattan Project as a teenager and goes to Los Alamos with no idea what he'll be working on. When he learns the true nature of the weapon being designed, he fears the post-war risk of a nuclear holocaust and begins to pass significant information to the Soviet Union.

7.1

Nuclear Now

Apr 28, 2023

With unprecedented access to the nuclear industry in France, Russia, and the United States, Nuclear Now explores the possibility for the global community to overcome the challenges of climate change and energy poverty to reach a brighter future through the power of nuclear energy. Beneath our feet, Uranium atoms in the Earth’s crust hold incredibly concentrated energy. Science unlocked this energy in the mid-20th century, first for bombs and then to power submarines. The United States led the effort to generate electricity from this new source. Yet in the mid-20th century as societies began the transition to nuclear power and away from fossil fuels, a long-term PR campaign to scare the public began, funded in part by coal and oil interests.

0.0

American Native

Nov 13, 2014

Thirty miles from Manhattan a group of mysterious mountain people fight for recognition as a legitimate Native American tribe from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. What begins as their journey travels the country as Native American’s fight for their rights at Standing Rock, Apache Junction and throughout the United States. Examining through expert interviews and unbridled access to the community, the film provides an in depth look at the complex past, volatile present and endangered future of the Ramapough Mountain Indians and what it truly means to be a “Native American”.

10.0

Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier

Nov 1, 1991

An intimate exploration of the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of murder in 1977, with commentary from those involved, including Peltier himself.

5.0

First Daughter and the Black Snake

Apr 15, 2017

The “Prophecy of the 7th Fire” says a “black snake” will bring destruction to the earth. For Winona LaDuke, the “black snake” is oil trains and pipelines. When she learns that Canadian-owned Enbridge plans to route a new pipeline through her tribe’s 1855 Treaty land, she and her community spring into action to save the sacred wild rice lakes and preserve their traditional indigenous way of life. Launching an annual spiritual horse ride along the proposed pipeline route, speaking at community meetings and regulatory hearings. Winona testifies that the pipeline route follows one of historical and present-day trauma. The tribe participates in the pipeline permitting process, asserting their treaty rights to protect their natural resources. LaDuke joins with her tribe and others to demand that the pipelines’ impact on tribal people’s resources be considered in the permitting process.

0.0

Test of a clean hydrogen bomb with a yield of 50 megatons

Dec 31, 1961

Documentary movie about testing of the largest nuclear weapon in history, the Tsar Bomba. Declassified and made available to the public in 2020.

0.0

The First Secret City

Nov 15, 2015

Before the creation of the secret cities of Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Hanford, the Manhattan Project hired the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works of St. Louis to refine the first uranium used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. For the next two decades, Mallinckrodt continued its classified work for the Atomic Energy Commission during the Cold War. The resulting radioactive waste contaminated numerous locations in the St. Louis area some of which have not been cleaned up 70 years after the end of World War II. Told through the eyes of an overexposed worker, the story expands through a series of interviews that careen down a toxic pathway leading to a fiery terminus at a smoldering, radioactively-contaminated landfill. The First Secret City reveals a forgotten history and its continuing impact on the community in the 21st Century, uncovering past wrongdoing and documenting the renewed struggles to confront the issue.

5.8

Broken Rainbow

May 5, 1985

Documentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.

Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History

Overview

Genres

Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History Trailers