COWBOYS, INDIANS, & LAWYERS follows the fortunes of two enemy camps as they struggle over the fate of the free-flowing Animas River in Colorado. A dam project called the Animas-La Plata (ALP) was authorized by Congress almost 40 years ago to help white farmers irrigate desert lands, but has never been built. The filmmaker, an expatriate New Yorker, becomes obsessed with ALP as she learns the dam is tied to massive development plans, including coal mines, power plants, and housing developments. With the Southern Ute Indian Tribe recruited as a key promoter, Sage Remington, a radical Southern Ute activist pits himself against his own tribal government and their politically connected lawyer, Sam Maynes. While Sam’s friendship with the tribal chairman helps solidify the tribe’s alliance with developers, Sage finds allies in a group of white environmentalists. Can a multicultural alliance of determined activists stop a dam supported by all the biggest development interests in the Southwest? In an intimate portrait of pork barrel politics, the film takes us along as these unlikely nemeses bring their cases to the halls of Congress, revealing the rich complexities of American democracy and Anglo-Indian relations through a rural community battle over money, power and water.
COWBOYS, INDIANS, & LAWYERS was produced, directed, and shot by Julia Dengel.
Cowboys, Indians, & Lawyers is a co-production of Walking Shadow Productions LLC, KUED and Rocky Mountain PBS in association with Independent Television Service with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
What people have to say about COWBOYS, INDIANS, & LAWYERS:
“Julia Dengel’s clear examination of the infamous Animas-La Plata project rushes along like the river itself. Her splendid photography reminds us that the landscape surrounds us and we have the power to destroy it bit by bit. The larger Western fight over water is illuminated in searing detail. This is an intelligent documentary, well told, and clear as a mountain lake.”
“Dengel’s real interest, and the payoff for the viewer, lies in the closeups. The characters involved are at least as fascinating as the political story. What results is a treatment that reveals much about private human motivations and how they attach themselves to a public cause.”
“This is the quintessential American West—a heavily-subsidized, environmental boondoggle of a water project that also brings long-overdue justice to Indian people and irrigation water to hardscrabble farmers on a parched landscape. COWBOYS, INDIANS, & LAWYERS presents the tangled and compelling saga of the Animas-LaPlata Project through the words and visions of the diverse and colorful westerners at the heart of this epic controversy. And there is no gloss here—this is the true story, fairly told and utterly authentic.”