Mountainfilm in Telluride To Screen Award-Winning Shorts at Opera House

03 Jul Mountainfilm in Telluride To Screen Award-Winning Shorts at Opera House

Telluride, CO – June 29, 2010. Mountainfilm in Telluride will host a cocktail and hors d’oeuvres reception at the Historic Sheridan Opera House from 6 to 7 pm on July 5 followed by a program of award-winning short films. The selected films include: Making the Crooked Straight, about Dr. Rick Hodes’s inspiring work with victims of spinal tuberculosis in Ethiopia (2009 Moving Mountains Prize); Alone on the Wall, about big-wall free-climber Alex Honnold (2010 Charlie Fowler Award); and, Fish Out of Water, about fly fishing as therapy for US veterans of war suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (Moving Mountains Prize 2010).  Alex Honnold and combat vets Christian Ellis and Joe Garcia will be special guests.

The aim of the evening is to raise $5,000 for each of three Mountainfilm initiatives: 

The Moving Mountains Prize – A cash award that goes annually to a nonprofit organization featured in a festival film. In making their determination, the judges watch the nominated films and examine the mission of each featured nonprofit and consider its scope, impact and need in their decision. The quality or appeal of the film itself is not a determining factor. Winners of the prize in recent years have been: 2008 – Free the Slaves (Dreams Die Hard); 2009 – Democratic Voice of Burma (Burma VJ), and JDC Medical Program (Making the Crooked Straight); 2010 – Sun Valley Adaptive Sports (Fish Out of Water).

Melissa Plantz photo

The Mountainfilm Commitment Granting Program – Aimed at helping individuals involved in creative media projects connected to Mountainfilm themes. In this inaugural year of the program, Mountainfilm is targeting five grants of $5,000, each, to individuals who are producing film, video, photography, book, art, and multimedia projects that are intended to move audiences to action on issues that matter. In addition to the cash awards, Mountainfilm will work with the grantees to broaden the audience and deepen the impact of each project by partnering with media personalities and industry professionals with whom it has a close relationship.

Making Movies that Matter – A hands-on, film-editing program tied to core curricula that unleashes students’ creativity and catalyzes critical thinking. The process starts when students watch a content-rich, issue-based film from Mountainfilm’s festival archives. Students then use digital images from the film to create their own short videos into which they incorporate music, graphics and special effects. A multidisciplinary approach to learning using a “cool” medium, the educational initiative has been enthusiastically received by middle and high school students and teachers across the country

Tickets for the event are $50 and are available online at www.mountainfilm.org or at the Opera House door.

“It will be a fun evening,” said Mountainfilm executive director Peter Kenworthy. “A good chance to catch a couple of great films, help us celebrate the success of our 2010 festival and contribute to what we think are three extremely worthwhile causes.”