Emmy® Award Winning Documentary Films

Robert Lundahl produces and directs films, public relations campaigns, supports litigation, and creates print and radio series’, episodes and podcasts.

As a writer, artist, filmmaker, journalist, and storyteller, he values an ongoing spirit of artistic freedom and intellectual inquiry, normally unavailable, now “unassailable.”

Here, he has contributed both commercial filmmaking and unrestricted creative exploration to forge a large and unique body of work, always ahead of its time, necessary in the moment.

His films are “markers of transition,” remembrances of being, uncomplicated, unexplained and uncompromised.

It is of global importance, how the story of the restoration of the Elwha River and fisheries came to be told. To this date, full ecosystem restoration at this scale has occurred only once. We are looking at the prime and only example of large scale remediation to the river ecosystem including the landscape, fisheries, culture, spirit and economy of a Pacific Northwest Region. In restoring the Elwha, we have a pattern for other endeavors and a seed for success.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, “Ecological restoration is the process of reclaiming habitat and ecosystem functions by restoring the lands and waters on which plants and animals depend. Restoration is a corrective step that involves eliminating or modifying causes of ecological degradation and re-establishing the natural processes — like natural fires, floods, or predator-prey relationships — that sustain and renew ecosystems over time.

With regard to the public/private process to restore the Salton Sea, reintroduction of water to the system allows ecosystems to be supported and to become more fecund, making for a cleaner and healthier environment and thus stabilizing the region.

The removal of water from the southern San Joaquin Valley similarly sees soils become salted, non-productive, and subject to conversion from agriculture to energy production (fracking) and other industries. Toxic compounds compile at specific locations, affecting wildlife and avian species, and human beings, through blowing dust and particulates. The lesson of the Elwha is “Let nature run its course.”

**NOW For Projection | Theater Ready | *EXPAND TO FULL SCREEN***

Unconquering the Last Frontier (97 Min.) chronicles the historic saga of the damming and undamming of Washington's Elwha River. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the ongoing salmon crisis in the Pacific Northwest, the film tells the story of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe's struggle to survive in the shadow of hydropower development. PBS.

It is the only film to address the historic trauma of Native American peoples, incurred during the early period of industrial colonialization and destruction of resources and environmental integrity in the Pacific Northwest.

Featuring Beatrice Charles (Elwha Klallam), Adeline Smith (Elwha Klallam), Rachel Hagaman (Elwha Klallam), Russ Hepfer (Elwha Klallam), Pete Taylor (Makah), and the Elwha Klallam community.

PBS, Free Speech TV, Theatrical, Washington, California

Technical: 156 400’ camera loads exposed, 62,400 ft. Kodak 7293 Film. French-made Eclair 1.5, ARRI Mount Angenieux 10-150 mm. Zoom, ARRI Mount Angenieux 12-120 mm. Zoom,, ARRI Mount Angenieux 9.5-57 mm. Zoom, Century 600 mm Prime, Double System Nagra 4.2 S, Center Track Time Code. Shoeps Microphones.

Song on the Water 4K Feature Trailer

Song on the Water (Promo)

60 minute documentary. In the 1960's Native Americans in the state of Washington were forbidden from fishing in their traditional areas, off the reservations. In what became know as the “Fish Wars,” tribal fishermen were harassed and sometimes beaten by State Police.

When the Boalt Decision passed in the U.S. federal courts in 1976, the federal government guaranteed the rights to fish in “usual and accustomed grounds.” But the state often denied access. Finally in a compromise, the state agreed to allow tribes to access traditional fishing grounds if they demonstrated they could access them by traditional means, ocean going canoes.

Lundahl’s award winning ethnographic documentary, “Song on the Water” (2005), takes viewers along with 50 indigenous canoes, their crews, and communities on a modern-day voyage to a traditional potlatch. Filled with beautiful photography and inspiring Coast Salish and Nuu Chah Nulth songs and cultural expressions, the one-hour film explores what the voyage means to the “pullers,” ground crews, and elders who share the waves, the traditions, and a vision of a positive future for Coast Salish and other Native youth.

PBS

Technical: Sony DSR-500 WS DV-Cam, Single and Double System, Sony Walkman Portable DAT. Sennheiser Wireless and Shotgun Mics.

Who Are My People? 4K Feature Trailer

In the Mojave desert, the world’s energy companies converge to produce power. They’ve destroyed ecosystems, migrating birds, tortoise, and sacred places from ancient civilizations. The LA Times indicates, we are at a “Flashpoint” between competing value-systems. Bodies have been exhumed, and geoglyphs destroyed, in an area that is a long-term indigenous settlement. “Who Are My People?” depicts how the world’s energy firms have met their match in a small group of Native American elders, in the hottest desert on the planet.

Theatrical 5 States–Oregon, South Dakota, Arizona, Nevada, California

Technical: Panasonic AG-HVX200 P2 HD Camcorder, Audio Technica Shotgun Mics. Sennheiser Wireless.

Harvest Dreams 4K Feature Trailer

Harvest Dreams profiles four farms and four farming families on Washington’s beautiful Olympia Peninsula, as agriculture there transitions from commodity products to niche and organic produce.

The film was shot over the course of a year to reveal activities through the change of seasons. It is at once touching and tragic as generations transition and farming practices in general face competition from increasing land costs and housing development that forces some out of the business forever.

Music: Special Thanks to Arhoolie Records, West Coast Bluegrass, The Maddox Brothers, Rose Maddox.

Liner Notes: "Harvest Dreams" features a West Coast Bluegrass score by the Maddox Brothers and Rose Maddox. She offers a stinging, swinging interpretation of Amazing Grace thats hard to forget.

From the Filmmaker:

“I remembered her as a real young kid driving to school in Pasadena in my mom's T-Bird, tuck and roll and the radio on. She recorded in Hollywood in the late 1950's. My first introduction to real ROCKABILLY.”

Theatrical, Washington

Technical: Sony DSR-500 WS DV-Cam. Sennheiser Wireless and Shotgun Mics.

**The Battle of Blythe 4K Short *Best Documentary Film, 2020**

The Battle of Blythe

For Mr. Lundahl, following a career working as a commercial filmmaker in Silicon Valley and around the world, making the film, “Who Are My People?” represented a homecoming of sorts. After a prologue by Preston Arrow-weed (Quechan/Kamya), the film begins with a journey down the roads of his youth, to a cherished location in the desert, comprised of a collection of small cabins.

There, as child, he would gaze toward the far away mountains and imagine what, or who was on the other side. Upon his return, he ventured over the mountains, where he met Alfredo Acosta Figueroa (Yaqui/Chemehuevi), colleague and compadre of Cesar Chavez, head of the UFW, United Farm Workers.

Failure to Consult

Together and along with La Cuna de Aztlan Sacred Sites Protection Circle, they would file a legal challenge to several large solar facilities scheduled to be built on "pristine desert ecosystems", and, on, around or nearby Native American sacred sites, based on Failure to Consult as mandated by Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Asked if he wanted "Whistleblower Status," Lundahl deferred, saying instead, he would serve as Figueroa's (volunteer) "PR guy."

Lundahl says he was shocked by racism directed toward Figueroa and his family by white "environmentalists," particularly since Figueroa had notably worked with a young Governor Jerry Brown to expand access to California universities for Chicano/Indigenous youth via Proposition 48 and the Affirmative Action Plan.

The Figueroa Famity faced racism at home as representatives of the Blythe, California UFW, in the primarily agricultural Palo Verde Valley, an area dominated by large growers.

He and wife Demesia were instrumental in founding the first Chicano Indigenous school in the country, Escuela de la Raza Unida.

From a closet filled with news clippings and VHS tapes the short film, “The Battle of Blythe” was created.

Lundahl worked with the Figaroa Family, Alfredo and Demesia, to create this commemorative film on the occasion of the school's 40th anniversory. The 19 minute short was awarded "Best Documentary Film" from the Tulalip Tribes' Hibulb Cultural Center and Museum Film Festival, 2020.

Technical: Panasonic AG-HVX200 P2 HD Camcorder, Sennheiser and Audio Technica Shotgun Mics. Sennheiser Wireless.

PayDirt 4K Feature Trailer

PayDirt Directors Cut – Robert Lundahl “PayDirt” was originally commissioned for A&E Network.

3840 x 2160/2160P Digital Theatrical Projection Print, 4K.

in a plunging economic reality we can rely on insights and lessons from the past, in this case, the non-reality of “liars, theives and hirelings” who escape accountability, cook the books, and promise the unattainable to distract from the truth.

The film is a present day cautionary tale about large scale fraud by institutions of the state, the military and military brass, huckster-clergy, and private enterprise leadership, billionaire CEOs who take advantage for their own benefit, regardless of the consequences to others.

What is Fraud? In this complex story, it is about serious environmental damage at a former US Navy Superfund site, a Top Gun US Marine airbase, and both correspondingly ironic financial fraud and thievery, exposed by a film created with Salem-News.com, Homebuyers of Texas, SF Weekly, GreenAction, and The Law Offices of Angela Alioto.

This honest, yet brutal story is a heavily reflective indictment of government, business and religious leadership, in a devastatingly tragic tale of the coverup of radioactive waste disposal from the Bikini Island nuclear weapons tests of the 1950's, asbestos pollution, and carcinogenic toxins left behind from half hearted and incomplete “clean-up” efforts.

Paydirt is framed around the decommissioning of military bases in California, exculpatory relief, and massive profit-taking amid the Great Recession of 2008-9.

Director's Cut now in 4K UHD, Ultra High Definition.

Please visit https://robertlundahl.com for hard-hitting, unassailable, ecological films, Cinema Verite Radio Episodes and Podcasts, Emmy® Award winning Television, Addy, Cindy, and Silver Screen award recipient shorts, and contemporary environmental journalism.

Get filled in at Unassailable Ecological on Substack for stories and updates.The El Toro segment, one of three, subtitled “Dead Men Tell No Lies,” identifies residual trichlorethylene in the soils of Irvine’s then planned Great Park, on the grounds of the former El Toro Naval Marine Air Station, turned over by the Navy for residential development and childrens’ play areas.

As a result, the film contributed motivation and momentum to the founding of the Non-Toxic Neighborhoods movement, at present, a coalition of groups in over 200 cities. After launching a campaign to raise awareness of the City of Irvine’s pesticide use in late November 2015, the City of Irvine adopted an historic organically driven landscaping policy in February 2016.

Since then the City of Irvine has successfully and organically maintained all pest pressure from weeds to rodents, on more than 570 acres of community and neighborhood parks, athletic fields; over 6,000 acres of open space, over 800 acres of public right-of-way, including street medians and parkways; 70,000 trees; and nearly 1.5 million square feet of facilities.

https://www.ocweekly.com/how-irvine-became-socals-first-non-toxic-city-7317638/

Technical: Panasonic AG-HVX200 P2 HD Camcorder, Audio Technica Shotgun Mics. Sennheiser Wireless. Edit Facility: Robert Lundahl and Associates, Larkspur, CA, Utelevision, Sausalito, CA.

CONTACT: Robert Lundahl FilmMaker, 415.205.3481, robert@studio-rla.com

Technical Achievement in Filmmaking

After a six month process, Agence RLA and Robert Lundahl have produced a stunning 4K Digital Projection Master of “Uncconquering the Last Frontier.” Created using Topaz Video AI Artificial Intelligence software from Topaz Labs, and struck from a Digital Beta format video master resolved at 720 x 540 dpi (Dots per square inch), the artifact free re-master/reconstruction at 3840 x 2880 dpi (4X3) restores the original edit and is roughly 28 x higher pixel density and resolution in keeping with modern projection systems for theaters.

The multi step process using Topaz AI’s Proteus and INX AI Models and Adobe Premiere was experimental and designed to optimize and improve the original Kodak 7293 16 mm film master quality, contrast, and colorimetry without utilizing the Rank Cintel Flying Spot Scanner optical/analog process, offering a higher level of creative control while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs involved with archival reprinting of the film from A/B rolls or alternatively, scanning higher contrast projection reels. It’s a technical breakthrough only available since 7/24 and utilized by a very few filmmakers including French documentarian and anthropologist Jean Rouch to revitalize important and timeless documentaries which otherwise might be lost or rendered cost prohibitive in the midst of a digital transition. 2K versions of the film are also available for compatible systems. The results may be seen at https://www.robertlundahl.com/feature-documentaries

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