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Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege

9/3/2026

Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege is a 2005 documentary film directed by Joan Lander and Puhipau, collectively known as Nā Maka o ka ‘Āina a. The film documents the debate and opposition surrounding the Mauna Kea Observatories. The observatories were built on the dormant volcano Mauna Kea for having specific properties that were favorable for astronomers, but the mountain is also considered sacred lan

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Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege is a 2005 documentary film directed by Joan Lander and Puhipau, collectively known as Nā Maka o ka ‘Āina a. The film documents the debate and opposition surrounding the Mauna Kea Observatories. The observatories were built on the dormant volcano Mauna Kea for having specific properties that were favorable for astronomers, but the mountain is also considered sacred land in Hawaiian religion. In 2020, Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

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This article is an automated import of the Wikipedia article "Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege", available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauna_Kea%3A_Temple_Under_Siege . Text is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.