VICELAND’S RISE heads to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to meet the Lakota and Dakota youth joining forces to protect their sacred water from the ‘black snake’ set to invade their ancestral homeland.

The people of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation of North and South Dakota are fighting to stop a pipeline from being built on their ancestral homeland. The Dakota Access Pipeline would snake its way across four states, bisecting sacred Indigenous sites and burial grounds along the route. The tribe fears that a leak could contaminate the Missouri River and spell disaster for the Great Sioux Nation. But water protectors are standing up in unprecedented numbers to preserve their way of life for future generations and to defend their sacred water.

Directed by Michelle Latimer.

Photo Courtesy VICELAND – Artist Cheyenne Randall