THE BLESSING IS NO DISGUISE

The Blessing is one of those films that you would never expect to see it coming and that is the great thing about the film.  Directed by Jordan Fein and Hunter Robert Baker, this documentary film focuses on Navajo coal miner Lawrence who works for America’s biggest coal producer in Arizona.  He must go against his Navajo traditions, practices, values and ethics in order to feed his family because he works on what his tribe considers to be a sacred mountain.   He is also a single father and is trying to raise his queer daughter Caitlin who plays on the men’s varsity football team and is also crowned homecoming queen.  The Blessing follows the struggles that this Navajo family has and what Lawrence himself is going through.  After being left by his wife, Lawrence has had to reach deep down inside of him to survive which meant for him to turn to sobriety.  His Navajo identity is being continually depleted by not only working on this sacred mountain but the manner to which American corporate culture has transformed himself, his landscape and environment.

What is unique about this film is that it is a cinematic storytelling masterpiece that is character driven.  With all the darkness that this family has to go through with their individual struggles plus trying to uphold their Navajo traditions, the light at the end of the tunnel seems to hard to reach.  This up and close personal film makes you empathetic towards this family and has you rooting for them especially for their daughter Caitlin which becomes that point of hope for this family.  This intimate portrait is the only manner to which anyone in the world can have an understanding of what the Navajo struggle is like in more desolate parts of America.  There is no disguising the fact that even the oldest spiritual traditions and expectations are broken or bent and sometimes that becomes necessary to survive.  Nevertheless, to be heard is the bottom line.   FERNTV spoke to director Jordan Fein further about his five-year journey in making this film during The Blessing during the Planet in Focus Film Festival.  Please click on our podcast below.

www.blessingfilm.com