Wyoming, escalated into a legal battle in 1997 when Mountain States Legal Foundation and several commercial climbers sued the National Park Service for asking climbers and tourists to respect Native American beliefs about the tower. Christopher McLeod, who had already been filming with the Hopi and Winnemem for five years, decided to add the Devils Tower story "to round out the film geographically, and to include the legal conflict over climbing a sacred site - because ultimately America is a nation of laws, and many value conflicts ultimately are worked out through legal arguments." The producers contrasted the treatment of Native American places with those important to European Americans: "the fundamental irony of the denial of religious freedom to the first Americans is mirrored in the fact that it is a federal crime to climb the faces of Mount Rushmore." In total, he and Maynor worked on the film for ten years. In the Light of Reverence is narrated by the Bay Area actor, Peter Coyote, and Tantoo Cardinal of the Métis people. It premiered in San Francisco on February 17, 2001 at the Palace of Fine Arts. The film received the Best Documentary Feature Award at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco, was nationally broadcast on PBS as part of the POV series, on August 14, 2001, and was seen by three million people. In 2005, the Council on Foundations awarded the film the prestigious Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Film and Digital Media, in recognition of the film's influence, its positive reception in Indian Country and its strong distribution history. In the Light of Reverence features interviews with Vine Deloria, Jr. of the Standing Rock Sioux, Florence Jones of the Winnemem Wintu, and Charles Wilkinson. References External links PBS POV Website on movie Sacred Land Film Project Website on movie and related issues 2001 films Documentary films about Native Americans Environmental films Religious places of the indigenous peoples of North America 2001 documentary films Hopi culture Lakota culture Winnemem Wintu 2000s English-language films