“Six seemingly opposing ways of life told through one unifying conversation about protecting the American West for generations to come; told through the reduction to two of our National Monuments: Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears.”
- THE CHARACTERS -
The precedent set while downsizing Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments is the greatest threat to our public lands that our generation has ever experienced.
-ABOUT THE FILM-
Volume 1 | In December 2017, a presidential executive order reduced two of our national monuments of scientific, cultural, and geological significance. For the first time in history, the Antiquities Act is challenged, resulting in a handful of grassroots organizers banding together in rural communities in Southern Utah to ensure their way of life, lives on.
This film unveils the never-before-told stories with inside access into what truly happened leading up to this attack on our public lands. In one of the most remote regions of the United States, a fierce land battle is being waged due to a determined religious ideology dating back to the early 90s with the establishment of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.
The Antiquities Act has never been tried in this way before, with the stakes at their highest. With the national monument protection status removed, hundreds of thousands of cultural artifacts and dinosaur fossils are now at risk of being looted from local communities to be sold on the black market.
What lies in the balance is the future of our national parks, national monuments, and the development of our public lands.
What happens if we lose our connection to nature while in the midst of an unprecedented attack on our public lands? Midnight Monument is an ensemble non-fiction film, driven by multiple characters that have a connection to this landscape.
This is a story about livelihood and healing. This is a story about the survival of generational traditions.
Currently, the stakes could not be higher in the battle over our public lands. Never has there been a presidential administration in our country that has attempted a rollback on permanently protected lands.
Those who support the preservation of monument designation search for the motivating truth behind the federal decision to reduce the boundary areas of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments. With overwhelming public support for monument protection, tourism dollars fueling rural economies, and proof that resource extraction operations inside of the monuments’ boundaries are not economically viable, the film dives into the compelling story of...why?
Why were Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments downsized in 2018?
- ABOUT TRAVERSE CINEMA STUDIO -
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Back in 2012, the idea of creating a documentary film studio emerged from a group of filmmakers enjoying beers around the campfire under the stars trying to find their way to leave their creative mark on the world. We wanted to find a greater purpose for our work outside of the typical commercial and agency production world. Damned and determined, Traverse Image our parent production company was founded a short while later to do truly soulful work; to use our craft and hearts as filmmakers to inspire monumental change. The production company has grown quickly over the last few years, operating under the ethos of “Built with Purpose”. We’ve positioned our documentary film company deep within the outdoor recreation community based out of Colorado which allows our film work to serve as a strong message to promote and protect the experiences in the great outdoors for generations to come.
Midnight Monument
(1) 65-minute independent documentary film. Finishing Post Production. 2023 Completion, 2024 Release.
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Written, Directed, and Produced | Thomas Kolicko
Producer | Kristen Olson
Associate Producer | Stacey Fronek
Director of Photography | Thomas Kolicko
Editors | Jazmine DiGiorgio
Colorist | Christopher Riggs
Production Company | Traverse Cinema Studio LLC
- BEHIND THE SCENES -
Back in 2018, the Traverse Image documentary film crew set out to produce and create Midnight Monument / On Strange Soil (WT), an original feature-length documentary that explores the controversy surrounding our public lands system beginning with the story behind Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments. The film is slated to be completed in 2022, and be released in 2023.