Broken Rainbow

The documentary tells the recent history of the Navajo people. A forced relocation sits at the centre of it. A law was passed in 1974. It was the Navajo Hopi Land Settlement Act. What followed was thousands of people displaced in Arizona. Those who had to move were living on Black Mesa. Families had been there for generations. Navajo and Hopi had been neighbours for a very long time. By the film’s account the real matter was mining rights. There is coal in that ground. The documentary builds its case out of testimony. The people who were moved speak for themselves. Martin Sheen narrates. The film won the Academy Award for best documentary. Victoria Mudd made the seventy minute film, an American production finished in 1985.