Zia Pueblo movie set

Ghost Towns: Alma, Cerrillos, Chloride, Clairmont, Elizabethtown, Golden, Lake Valley, Loma Parda, Madrid, McCartys, Mogollón, Montoya, San Fidel, Shakespeare, Steins, Winston
Movie Sets: Bonanza Creek Ranch, Cerrillos, Madrid, Cook Ranch & the Silverado Set, Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, Eaves Movie Ranch, White Sands National Monument, Zia Pueblo

Zia Pueblo

With the magic of an incredible landscape, Zia Pueblo takes you to an other-worldly place. Like so many areas of tribal land in New Mexico, it is a place that speaks to the heart as well as the mind. There is an aura of mystery distinguishing such sacred places.

Zia Pueblo has a small movie set, with a shepherd's hut built for the film Into the Badlands and later used by other productions. Scraggy junipers; soil heavily laden with gypsum; and a stark, hilly landscape looking like the surface of the moon all set the mood. The different areas of Zia contribute to its other-worldly feeling—chalky white rock formations, razorback ridges, basins of cacti and piñon, thermal springs bubble out of the ground, soils of Martian red and striated yellow, charcoal and cream. The saline Río Salado winds through a wild and uncertain terrain of rolling prairie and deeply carved arroyos.

The 122,000-acre reservation has been used to represent another planet for the television series Earth 2 and the movie New Eden. It became Grand Canyon territory for the miniseries The Fire Next Time and Wyatt Earp used Zia's open range land for a captivating scene of a wagon train caught in a blinding sandstorm in the Mojave Desert.

In 1988, the tribe made a concerted effort to attract film productions as a form of economic development that wouldn't adversely affect the reservation. The entire community is helped through the receipt of location fees paid by film companies. The monetary benefit comes without any long-term impact on the land. After a project is over, the area goes back to its original state with the rain and wind erasing the tracks.

The Zias have sought to balance traditional Pueblo life with the challenges of a modern economy. Religious activities and other ceremonies that make up the core of traditional life always take priority. This is the reason why filming is never allowed in the village, since life brings unexpected events calling for a collective tribal participation that is often closed to non-Zia residents. Areas outside the village, however, can be filmed without any scheduling conflicts.