SYRCL’s Wild & Scenic® Film Festival Announces Films, Premieres & Guest Filmmakers
SYRCL’s Wild & Scenic® Film Festival announced this year’s selected films, premieres and attending guest filmmakers for the January 14-16, 2011 festival. The program committee spent close to 2,000 hours previewing 345 great films submitted from around the world. Over 110 films were accepted for their stellar filmmaking, beautiful cinematography and first-rate storytelling that inform, inspire and ignite solutions and possibilities in one another and our communities. Topics explored include nature, community activism, adventure, conservation, water, energy and climate change, wildlife, environmental justice, agriculture, Native American and indigenous cultures.
Of these 110 films, 62 are world, national or regional premieres. They include High Sierra – a Journey on the John Muir Trail directed by Pete Bell and Leon Godwin, follows a group of students on the John Muir Trail, through the tallest mountain range in the contiguous United States. Experience the “Range of Light” as well as the range of emotions and physical challenges that accompany such an epic adventure.
Gum for My Boat, directed by Russell Brownley, is about an ocean that was once deemed off limits is now becoming a source of fun, escape and even a chance for a way to make a living for the young members of the Bangladesh Surf Club. Follow professional surfer, Kahana Kalama as he works with Hawaiian-based non-profit, Surfing The Nations, and learns from these kids that sometimes, surfing involves much more than catching waves.
In the eco-comedy How to Boil a Frog directed by Jon Cooksey, an ordinary dad gives us the scoop on the imminent end of the world as we know it, and 5 surprising ways we can save civilization while having fun, meeting new friends, and making some trouble.
National Geographic Explorer and filmmaker Jon Bowermaster returns to this year’s festival with his latest film SoLA: Louisiana Water Stories. Bowermaster and his crew first went to Louisiana in 2008, to make a film about the complicated relationship between man and water. They had no idea that their reporting would conclude with the worst manmade ecologic disaster ever. This film is a poignant look back at a way of life that may now be gone forever, as well as a prescient look at exactly how the gusher in the Gulf was allowed to happen.
Filmmakers Trip Jennings and Andy Maser
Also attending this year is filmmakers, professional kayakers, and National Geographic Young Explorer grantees Andy Maser and Trip Jennings who will premiere their film Spoil. Spoil, is about the International League of Conservation Photographer’s adventure through the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia to support the coastal First Nations’ fight against a proposed oil export pipeline from the tar sands. In the challenge of just 10 days, these world famous photographers must capture the iconic wilderness and wildlife of this suddenly threatened landscape.
Maser will also premiere his film The Greatest Migration, which is about the Snake River salmon that swim more than 900 miles inland and climb almost 7,000 feet to reach their spawning grounds. These iconic fish travel farther and higher than any other salmon on Earth, but a gauntlet of dams blocks their great migration and is pushing these high-altitude salmon to extinction.
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet Gary Snyder
This year’s special guest is Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Gary Snyder. Frequently described as the “poet laureate of Deep Ecology”, Snyder is a founding intellect, essayist and leader of the new environmental awareness that supports legislation and preservation without losing sight of direct wild experience – local people, animals, plants, watersheds and food sources. Practice of the Wild, a film about Snyder that features vintage footage and a current and in depth conversation between he and fellow poet and novelist Jim Harrison, will be one of this year’s festival features. Following the film, Snyder along with Randy Hayes, founder of the Rainforest Action Network, will lead a conversation on environmental activism.
Over 100 filmmakers, activists and special guests will travel around the world to Nevada City to attend this year’s film festival. Festival attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions during Q&A’s following their respective films. Many filmmakers will also lead free workshops in the Activist Center. Here people can learn more about the issues and how to get involved plus receive filmmaking tips from the pros. Festival attendees can also meet many of the filmmakers and activists in the Wild & Scenic Media Lounge hosted by See Jane Do located at Festival Headquarters in the Alpha Building or during the Festival’s Gala Event hosted by the Nevada City Winery.
The 2011 Wild & Scenic Film Festival runs January 14-16 in Downtown Nevada City. The complete list of films and schedule is available at www.wildandscenicfilmfestival.org
