Films
Violet Hills Productions proudly presents the following films:
We Are Still Here
The story of Katherine Siva Saubel and the Cahuilla Indians of Southern California (2007)
Written, produced, and directed by Leigh Podgorski
57 minutes • USA • Documentary Feature
View Trailer | Stills | Cast | Buy DVD | Library Journal Review
Visit the We Are Still Here webpage.
We Are Still Here documents the tenacious struggle of elder and tribal chair, Dr. Katherine Siva Saubel, and her efforts to preserve the culture, history and traditions of the Cahuilla people. Presented through in-depth interviews with Dr. Saubel and her brother, traditional Cahuilla Bird Singer, Alvino Siva; the film also portrays the powerful Creation Stories of the Cahuilla performed by a stellar all Native American cast. Footage also includes Cahuilla festivals and traditional arts of basket weaving and pottery. Katherine Saubel also introduces the viewer to the ethnobotany of the Cahuilla people. The Cahuilla people have preserved the tradition of their ancestors and are teachers of their language and songs that maintain their culture.
Ouray’s Peak (Upcoming Project – Seeking Backers)
Download Ouray’s Peak Screenplay (© 2003, Acrobat .pdf, 198 kb)
Weaving historical fact into fictional, Ouray’s Peak is the story of a Ute Indian family from the time of the White River Massacre in 1879 to the present portraying the quest of the archetypal heroine as she explores her ancestral past and her present familial bonds in a spiritual search for wholeness and unity.
1225 Mistletoe Lane (Upcoming – Seeking Backers)
A unique blend of sentimentality, humor and romance, 1225 Mistletoe Lane is a genuine feel-good story that appeals to kids from one to ninety-two… males as well as females, elves and talking reindeer alike! In the words of one Amazon.com customer, “… a contemporary mixture of It’s a Wonderful Life, Back to the Future, and Somewhere in Time.”
Christmas 2000: a blissful time when Y2K mania was gleefully recalled as farcical overreactions, and Yankee fans everywhere were still reveling in the aftermath of the Subway series. On the surface there’s little reason for native New Yorker Jim Carrelli, now a left-coaster, to be so miserable. But he has dragged a lot of baggage into the new millennium, and it’s weighing on him as heavily as Jacob Marley’s chain.
Feeling no pain during an outing to his favorite watering hole, Jim spills his guts, revealing the source of his mounting misanthropy to his neighbor Galen, a loquacious, mysterious older gentleman with unusual taste in automobiles and haberdashery. Digging past Jim’s selfishness and Long Island parochialism to discover a good heart underneath, Galen makes him and offer of a lifetime.
