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Upstream Battle
Director: Ben Kempas, Germany, 2008, 97 minutes
Filmmaker in attendance
Since the beginning of time, Pacific salmon have swum up the
Klamath River to their spawning grounds. A few generations ago,
there were a million salmon per season. Today there are only a
few thousand. Four hydroelectric dams in northern California and
Oregon have cut off their path and turned the water into a toxic
soup. In 2002, as many as 70,000 salmon died from these conditions
in one of the worst fish kills in American history. One of the
most haunting images in Upstream Battle is that of salmon leaping
out of the water, only to smack into the dam. Director Ben Kempas
tells the remarkable story of the battle over the use of this
river, in which average citizens struggle against a multinational
corporation that appears as impenetrable as its dams.
One leader of the citizen’s crusade is Merv George. He is a member
of the Hoopa Valley tribe, whose people have fished the salmon
since long before there was a California. George is a witty and
charismatic embodiment of both the modern and the traditional.
He plays in a rock‘n’roll band, but also hunts woodpeckers to
make ceremonial objects from their feathers. His wife Wendy equals
him in charm, feistiness, and devotion to upholding Hoopa ways.
Their tribe has managed to maintain its traditions while so many
other pre-colonial people have lost theirs. But the Hoopa culture
is largely based around fishing salmon. “If they’re sick, we’re
sick,” says George.
This quarrel could easily have been framed as a classic David
and Goliath confrontation, but Upstream Battle is wonderfully
nuanced, acknowledging the complexity of the situation. The other
stakeholders in this ecosystem include farmers who rely on the
water for irrigation; the neighbouring tribes of Yurok, Karuk
and Klamath; and commercial fishermen who catch the salmon at
sea. The film manages to humanize those on all sides, including
the corporate employees whose own livelihoods are in flux over
changing owners.
When the dam license comes up for renewal, George and his allies
pursue a once-in-a-lifetime chance to force the new owner, billionaire
Warren Buffett, into the largest dam removal project in history.
It may seem like an upstream battle, but so are most battles worth
fighting.
Ben Kempas was born in Stuttgart and studied documentary filmmaking
at the University of Television and Film Munich. He directed the
feature-length documentaries To Be a Nation Again (1999)
and The Loch Long Monster (2001) for television. Upstream
Battle (2008) is his theatrical documentary debut.
Followed by a public
forum: The Ecology of Films.
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