A Different American Dream(2017)

1h 24m
- Documentary

Release Date: Jan 6, 2017 | Limited

In North Dakota an Indian nation finds itself at a critical moment in its long history. The Three Affiliated Tribes face catastrophic damage to their land and culture as a result of the recent oil boom on the Fort Berthold Reservation.

Official Website

Note: Distributed by First Run

Releases

Original Release (Independent) | Jan 6, 2017

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Box Office Results

Results

Opening Weekend US & Canada:
$848
Total US & Canada:
$1,172
Total Worldwide:
$1,172

Current Showtimes

Your Location or

(U.S. Only)

Director & Top Cast

Simon Brook
Director

Simon Brook

Technical Specifications

Sound Mix: D-Cinema 48kHz 5.1

Other Details

Country of Origin: France,United States

Language: English

Summaries

Plot Summary

Fort Berthold Indian Reservation is home to the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara (MHA). The reservation sits in the middle of the Bakken Formation, the largest shale oil field in North America. Today, the reservation is completely surrounded by oil exploration and fracking. The landscape is littered with oil wells, fracking towers, toxic waste dumps and a network of pipes underground. There are hundreds of thousands of miles of underground pipelines carrying oil across, from and through the reservation. Regardless of the tremendous economic opportunity the oil industry offers some tribal members, it threatens the cultural and ecological future of the entire community and its land. Tribal members have sold off mineral rights and some sovereign land has been developed. A sudden and fleeting influx of wealth exists alongside widespread poverty. Environmental disaster and contamination are a looming threat.Fort Berthold is home to 6,500 members of the MHA Nation. The reservation covers 1 million acres within which there are 21 fracking rigs, 1,400 active oil wells and 1,992 potentially exploitable wells. With the recent oil boom, North Dakota quickly became the second-largest oil producing state in the U.S., at its peak generating approximately 1.3 million barrels per day from close to 9,000 wells. The MHA Nation has suffered the environmental consequences of this extractive industry without seeing many gains. The average life expectancy on the reservation is 57 years of age compared with 79 in the rest of North Dakota. The number of tribal members directly benefitting from the oil boom is less than 15%.The flood of outside money that arrived with the oil boom has had a devastating impact on the social fabric of the community and has created a myriad of new problems on the reservation. Suicide and unexpected deaths are common. Rates of violent crime, drug abuse and sex work have all risen.Amid all this chaos and upheaval, tribal members including the Chairman Mark Fox, are trying to save their land to protect the future of their people. From the perspective of many in the MHA Nation, this oil-boom is the latest in a long history of attempts by Euro-Americans to exploit their land and destroy their way of life. In the 19th century, a smallpox epidemic all but destroyed the Mandan and decimated the Hidatsa and Arikara. In the wake of this disaster, the three tribes affiliated and formed one nation. In the late 1940s, the creation of the Garrison Dam and the flooding of their lands to create Lake Sakakawea forced a massive relocation of tribal members to unarable highlands and aggravated already widespread poverty. Fracking and oil exploration today represent yet another challenge to tribal peace, health and sovereignty. As Chairman Mark Fox tells us, we are not going to trade revenue for having no place to live.

Storyline

A Different American Dream documents the impact of the recent oil boom on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in western North Dakota. Home to the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nations (MHA), the reservation sits on the banks of Lake Sakakawea, a body of water covering sacred land, now threatened by fracking waste. The film opens amidst the chaos of the oil-boom: trucks, rigs, pumps, tankers, trains, sirens and roaring engines create the soundtrack for this post-industrial world. From this dystopian landscape emerge the central characters of the film, people whose lives are inseparable from this breathtaking place on the edge of the Badlands. The speed and extent of cultural and environmental damage caused by the oil industry on the Fort Berthold Reservation is staggering. A Different American Dream responds to the urgency of the social, environmental, and spiritual threat to the ancestral homelands of the MHA Nation. In North Dakota, a sovereign Indian nation finds itself at a critical moment in its long history. Its cultural identity and heritage are vanishing in the face of the destruction of their ancestral homelands. Can they save their land, their culture and their way of life in the face of catastrophic environmental damage from the oil industry? The potential prosperity from oil comes at a massive environmental and spiritual cost and threatens their very future. This meditative and intimate portrait of an ancient people asks the universal questions that affect us all: what is the true meaning of wealth? And where and what is home?