Malheur (2016-2018)

In the early days of January 2016, a group of heavily armed protesters supported by alt-right militiamen illegally took over the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a federally-protected wildlife area of the Oregon high desert. The 40-day showdown with law enforcement officers that ensued culminated in the dramatic killing of Robert LaVoy Finicum, the occupiers' spokesperson, who was shot dead by the FBI at a roadblock a few miles from the refuge, and the arrest of the occupiers.

The Malheur standoff is the latest instalment of the Sagebrush Rebellion, a conflict between the Federal Government and a small but vocal and increasingly violent number of ranchers, business-owners and local officials, which started in the early 1970s. In the American West, the vast majority of land is Federal property and is regulated by Federal agencies. Ownership and management of this land, the Sagebrush Rebels claim, belong to the people and should be transferred to states and counties. 

Malheur is a visual fable about a desolate American West where disenfranchised citizens, power-hungry local officials, and patriot groups unite in a shared hatred of the Federal Government. It was shot in the weeks that followed the standoff as a way to confront the Frontier-infused and largely delusional rhetoric of the occupiers with the realities of the territory where their discourse originates.  

At the very heart of Malheur is a difficult question: how do external physical conditions, the place where we live, affect the way we see ourselves and perceive others – and eventually shape our relationship with truth? As I tried to make sense of the outcome of the 2016 presidential election and the sudden pervasiveness of "alternative facts" in our society, Malheur is an invitation to take a closer look at the living environment of those who embrace this new world.