Special Screening – Written on the Landscape: Mysteries Beyond Chaco Canyon

Sunday, September 22nd, 2024

4:00 PM - 6:30 PM

Price: $15 General; $10 TCA Member ; $5 Student/ Youth

Taos Center for the Arts

Written on the Landscape: Mysteries Beyond Chaco Canyon

SUN, September 22, 4pm

2024 | Documentary | Directed by Anna Sofaer | 1 hr | Not Rated

Get tickets here!

Post Screening Q & A with Filmmaker Anna Sofaer,  Editor Christopher Beavers and Alonso Mendez, Archaeoastronomer &  Artist

Written on the Landscape: Mysteries Beyond Chaco Canyon illustrates new ground-breaking research in Anna Sofaer’s exploration of the Chaco Canyon world of magnificent architecture that flourished 1000 years ago across 70,000 square miles of the American Southwest. The third film in the Chaco Canyon trilogy blends stories from indigenous and non-indigenous scholars to convey an ancient culture’s vital relevance to us today.

“This film is a journey not only through history but through the very soul of a land and its people.” — Robert Redford

“A captivating look at one of the most impressive archaeological sites in North America…Anna Sofaer reveals the solar and lunar complexity of Chacoan buildings with impressive visual economy and clarity. In the process, we get a whole new picture of the intelligence at work behind Chacoan society and its architecture. The Mystery of Chaco Canyon interweaves a narrative that is both attentive to indigenous thought and values, and robustly grounded in the rigors of scientific method. Well-paced and absorbing, simultaneously poetic and analytical, this film provides a new benchmark of understanding for serious studies of ancestral Pueblo astronomy and culture.”

— Dr. Peter Whiteley, Dept. of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History

Anna Sofaer is an American researcher and educator on the archaeoastronomy of the Ancestral Puebloans of the American Southwest and other ancient cultures. In 1977, she “rediscovered” the astronomical marker site known as the Sun Dagger on Fajada Butte in Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

Alonso Mendez, an archaeoastronomer and artist of Maya heritage, who has done extensive work in Palenque, Mexico, shares his deep insights into Mesoamerican cosmology, drawing parallels between these traditions and Chacoan and Puebloan traditions.

Christopher Beaver has produced, directed, and edited numerous films including Dark Circle that was awarded Grand Prize in Documentary at the US (now Sundance) Film Festival, and a National Emmy in News and Broadcasting, and was short-listed for Academy Award Feature Documentary. Recently, his film, Groundwater, received Special Recognition, Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism. Chris has contributed and edited extensively Written on the Landscape.

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