The Mountain That Weeps (2019)

THE MOUNTAIN THAT WEEPS is a 2019 documentary film about the most contentious land-use battle in Riverside County, California history. In 2005, Granite Construction Company proposed a seventy-five-year open-pit mining project on the southern border of the City of Temecula, California. The project, branded "Liberty Quarry", ignited community outrage which led to seven years of heated debates and public hearings. Liberty Quarry was quickly opposed by The City of Temecula, "Save our Southwest Hills" a local grassroots group, The Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve and the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians. These four entities came together in an unprecedented effort to contest the quarry project claiming it would destroy quality of life, ruin air quality, cause an increase in traffic and pollution, and devastate a site held sacred to the Pechanga Tribe. Despite opposition and denials on multiple levels of Riverside County Government, politics and back door deals kept the project alive, allowing a giant corporation to supersede the will of the public. More than just a development vs environment story, THE MOUNTAIN THAT WEEPS explores which force is stronger, the power of community, corporate greed, the corruption of politics, or reverence for the sacred.