New for 2012 Wild & Scenic Film Festival
To celebrate our 10th anniversary, we are adding many new elements to the festival, from street theatre to a special evening with Amy Goodman in Grass Valley. We are using new technology to screen our films, thanks to AJA, and following the films, activist organizations will be present in the venues to further educate and inspire you, our audience. The festival is a time for rejuvenation, a time to renew your drive to take part and play an active role in your world.
Join us at Grass Valley Veterans Hall for a lecture by Amy Goodman discussing her lifetime of 
work in independent media. Goodman is most known by her program Democracy Now, featured on many public radio stations and television. Wild & Scenic is proud to co-sponsor the evening with KVMR. Following Goodman’s lecture, watch the award winning Schooling the World: the White Man’s Last Burden and take part in a Q&A session with the filmmaker, Carol Black. Enjoy an opening reception with Amy Goodman prior to the event at Center for the Arts featuring local artists’ work with a VIP ticket. Saturday, January 14, Grass Valley Vets Hall, 7pm, buy tickets here.
Spawn up Broad Street with the Salmon Parade. Those who are young at heart will celebrate salmon and learn about the salmon life cycle, and the state of wild salmon and trout in the Yuba River. Bring a salmon cut out (some will be available at the parade and in Thursday’s Prospector). Meet at noon after the Kid Films Session in front of the Nevada Theatre.
Climate trial theatre is performed by Peaceful Uprising and sponsored by Finding the Good Semester Program, Nevada City. The trial of climate activist Tim DeChristopher was postponed nine times before finally taking place in March 2011. In November 2010, a group of Peaceful Uprising activists, including Tim, decided to stage their own trial. They wrote a brilliant play, and created larger-than-life puppets with the help of artist/activist David Solnit. Unlike anything seen at Wild & Scenic before, YOU, the audience, are the jury in this live theater. Saturday evening on Commercial Street and during the Saturday afternoon session in Miners Foundry’s Stone Hall.
Commercial Street will be closed to traffic during the festival weekend. Gather here for spontaneous fun, including speeches from our soapbox. Feel inspired? Step on up and speak your mind.
Watch festival favorites from the past ten years at Oddfellows Saturday morning and afternoon. The retrospective sessions includes Queen of Trees, Homeland, Being Caribou, among others. Should this be your first or tenth time watching these films, it will be exciting to see them return to Wild & Scenic’s screen.
Find Flo, SYRCL’s official mascot. To raise awareness about the plight of Chinook salmon and Steelhead Trout, Flo will be hard to find. (Surprisingly a 5-foot fish walking around Nevada City just fits in!) Those that do spot this mischievous Steelhead Trout, record the sighting on your Flo scorecard. (I’m honing my searching skills by finding Waldo.) The person who gets the most accurate Flo sightings will win a weekend pass to the 2013 festival. (But get ready; I am in it to win it!) Scorecards will be at any SYRCL booth or at Festival HQ.
This year we are featuring late night music Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights! For the first year we are co-presenting with the Haven Underground on Friday and Saturday night and the National Hotel on Sunday. Saturday night enjoy soothing three-part melodies with a folksy Americana groove by The Railflowers, a trio of sisters from Chico. On Saturday Night dance late into the night with the Dead Winter Carpenters. This 5-piece roots-rock ban captures the freedom of the road with the kind of energy that will make you stomp your feet. And on Sunday get those feet moving to a local favorite, The Belfry Brothers. For more information, visit our music page.
With approximately 60 artists from throughout our watershed, art will be featured 
throughout downtown Nevada City and Grass Valley. Stroll through the art shows while sipping wine on the wine stroll on Saturday from 4:30-6:30. Pick up a special program listing all of our featured artists and venues at Fest HQ. Thank you, Nevada County Arts for partnering with us to make this event the biggest art show in Nevada City. Also, thanks to Nevada City Chamber of Commerce for organizing the wine stroll.
We extremely excited about our Dam Removal Celebration on Saturday from 5:30-6:30 at the Haven Underground. American Rivers, the South Yuba River Citizens League & Patagonia invite you to join filmmaker Andy Maser for a premiere of The Craziest Idea with incredible footage of the Elwha & Condit Dam removals. Share a toast to celebrate rivers running wild and free, with Sierra Nevada beer. We hope this event will inspire action with you taking action to remove more outdated dams and restore wild salmon habitat. The Gold Fish, a one-act slapstick comedy will also be performed. Free to the public.
These are a sample of our new events to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Join the celebration! See you on Nevada City’s streets.
– Mary Kohnstamm, Festival Assistant
