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.
Hacking at Leaves documents artist and hazmat-suit aficionado Johannes Grenzfurthner as he attempts to come to terms with the United States' colonial past, Navajo tribal history, and the hacker movement. The story hones in on a small tinker space in Durango, Colorado, that made significant contributions to worldwide COVID relief efforts. But things go awry when Uncle Sam interferes with the film's production.
Over 90 percent of the available lands in the Greater Chaco region of the Southwest have already been leased for oil and gas extraction. Witness the Indigenous-led work to protect the remaining lands that are untouched by oil and gas, as well as the health and well-being of communities surrounded by these extractive industries.
In the spring of 2015, residents from two separate communities enlist the help of scientists to prove their suspicions that their water had become dangerously contaminated. Now they are fighting back.