Umunhum
Mount Umunhum rises 3,486 feet in the Santa Cruz range between San Jose and the Pacific, and this short film traces what the mountain has meant across very different eras. Indigenous tribal bands describe it as sacred ground where their ancestors prayed for thousands of years before any road reached the summit. In 1957 the United States Air Force built a radar station there as part of Cold War air defense, blasting a summit road and topping the peak with the concrete cube structure still visible today. The film follows the mountain's shift from military installation to abandoned ruin to public land, using interviews and archival material to connect the base's Cold War purpose with the long indigenous history it interrupted. It closes on the effort to reopen the summit to the public and restore its meaning as a shared and sacred place, rather than a fenced-off relic of the radar era.