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Film

By D. Dion


When Sender Films brings their superior brand of climbing flicks to Mountainfilm in Telluride, they know they are getting an appreciative audience—often one full of climbers and adventurers who have been through the ascetic conditioning of sleeping in the cold at high elevations, burdened with just enough food and water to make the journey possible, or who have scars on their hands from jamming them into a crack as they ascend a wall. Sender has managed to dazzle these likeminded folks at past festivals, winning awards for films like “King Lines,” “Return to Sender” and “The Sharp End.”

But the mountaineering world isn’t the only one sitting up and taking notice of Sender: National Geographic International contracted Sender to produce a television series based on the film company’s popular work “First Ascent.” The film company has finished the six-part series and will show four of the programs at Mountainfilm in Telluride this weekend. “In the past we’ve done a lot of television stuff, but we’ve never produced our own series. It was different working for National Geo, but also similar, in that a lot of our films are sort of episodic. But it was a much bigger budget, more storyline, and we were creating a product that wasn’t just for mountain film enthusiasts and the climbing community,” says Nicholas Rosen, who co-produced the series with his partner Peter Mortimer.

26 May, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear director Louie Psyihoyos speaking with Susan]

Psihoyos Louie 0007 Mountainfilm in Telluride, May 28 – May 31, features about 75 extraordinary films about extraordinary people, places and things, among them, the 2009 Oscar winner for Best Feature Documentary, director Louie Psyihoyos' "The Cove."


We are on a first-name basis with these iconic creatures: Lassie, Bambi, Babe, and Flipper. We project all that is good and right with the world onto our animal friends – but are we doing them any favors.? Certainly not in the case of Flipper and his relatives. "Flipper" is the genesis of "The Cove," its raison d'etre.
26 May, 2010 /
[click "Play" to listen to Chris Rainier's conversation with Susan]

Troja Written and directed by Andrew Gregg, "Tattoo Odyssey," follows Mountainfilm in Telluride regular,  photojournalist/author Chris Rainier, as he travels the world to connects the dots, if you will, from past to present –  from the tribes of the ancient world to the newly-tattooed aficionados of the West – to reveal the hidden symbolism of marks on the body as ways to express identity.

"Tattoo Odyssey" is one of the 75 or so featured films at the 32nd annual Mountainfilm in Telluride, May 28 – May 31. Screenings are scheduled for Saturday afternoon at The Masons and Sunday evening at the five-star Wilkinson Public Library. (But check the link to the film schedule below in case of changes.)
25 May, 2010 /
[click "Play" to listen to Susan's conversation with Ernst Aebi]

BioAebi01 Ernst Aebi, both the man and his film, "Barefoot to Timbuktu," embodies the ideals of Mountainfilm in Telluride, this year May 28 – May 31. The annual gathering of a tribe, more evangelists really, is dedicated to saving the world one person, one place, one species, one story or idea at a time.


Aebi is Indiana Jones with a socio-environmental consciousness, who walked to the North Pole from Siberia, lived for a while off the land in the Canadian Arctic, and another time with reindeer herders in Siberia. Aebi went up the Rio Negro, crossed the Amazon jungle in a dugout on the Casiciares to the Orinocco, raced across the Sahara in the Paris-Dakar rally, sailed across the Atlantic four times and was a "guest" of the Chinese government for illegally entering into western Tibet. ( And that's just the tip of the iceberg.) The swashbuckling globetrotter and Renaissance man also holds degrees in electronics and political science.
24 May, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Emily Kunstler's conversation with Susan]

DTU_Poster_Final_Small "Disturbing the Universe" might be a catchall phrase to describe Mountainfilm in Telluride, an annual gathering of a tribe of people who rarely pull their punches. The regulars who attend year after year – 2010 is the 32nd annual get-together – believe the world can be changed for the better through the metastasis of ideas and images, one person, one mountain, one book, one photograph, one symposium, one film at a time.


Like many Mountainfilm regulars and guests, radical civil rights attorney William Kunstler was a man who thrived on controversy and never pulled his punches, his wild hair was always on fire about something. For better or for worse, no one can deny the man advocated change. William Kunstler's professed avatar was Michelangelo's David, the man who fought the giant Goliath. During the second half of the 20th century, Kunstler was one of the most admired lawyers in America ( largely by progressives, though not all civil rights lawyers) – and one of the most reviled (by the radical right, who wanted him disbarred).
24 May, 2010 /
[click "Play", Susan and Nick Sherman are NOT silent]



Mountainfilm in Telluride waxes eloquent on the subject of silence with the inclusion of  "Soundtracker" in this year's lineup. The documentary, the intersection of science and poetry, was written and directed by Nick Sherman.

The Sounds of Silence were first immortalized in lyrics that propelled folk duo Simon and Garfunckel to fame back in 1964. Forty-six years later the sounds of silence are celebrated once again in "Soundtracker," as Sherman pursues sound recordist Gordon Hempton pursuing the few remaining quiet corners of the Earth, where deer cross a quiet country road and tall grass waves in the wind. In a way, the two media events are related: both the hit single and the documentary are responses to an assault, the first on an American president; the second, on our senses. Both tributes argue for an awakening.
22 May, 2010 /
[click "Play" to listen to Joel Sartore's conversation with Susan]

Rare_500px It's been a long and winding road from the Wichita Eagle to Mountainfilm in Telluride, where photographer Joel Sartore is a guest presenter at the opening Moving Mountains Symposium. He is also scheduled to give a talk about  the findings in his latest book. Both events focus on the crisis of extinction.

“We are living in the sixth major extinction on this planet and the first one to be caused by humans,” says Festival Director David Holbrooke. “The statistics are staggering. We’re currently experiencing the worst spate of species die-off since the loss of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. It’s estimated that a species dies off every 20 minutes. Some scientists predict that between 30 and 50 percent of all species will be extinct by mid-century. E.O. Wilson says that biodiversity is the key to life on this planet and that its collapse is the biggest threat we are facing.”

21 May, 2010 /
[Elisabeth Gick speaks to Jamyang Yeshi about "Shining Spirit", click "Play"]

Jamyang_Yeshi (editor's note: After publishing it was pointed out that this post was written by Elisabeth Gick. My apologies.)

Telluride and Tibet have more in common than alliteration. Mountain cultures nurture individuals unafraid to reach for the sky. They support shining spirits such as Jamyang Yeshi, the subject of a celluloid study, "Shining Spirit" by filmmaker Karen McDiarmid.

"Shining Spirit" is featured at the 32nd annual Mountainfilm in Telluride Festival. Jamyang is also scheduled to perform his music throughout the long weekend, May 28 – May 31, chock full of lectures (the all-day Moving Mountains Symposium on extinction is Friday), breakfast talks, art, music – and film – in support of endangered species, cultures, and ideas.

21 May, 2010 /

Image-2 Dragontattoo Telluride's Nugget Theatre is screening four films for the week of Friday, May 21-Thursday, May 27, including a Telluride Film Festival presentation of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

In "Furry Vengeance" we learn that nature may fight back against real estate developers. It may help to remember that this movie is aimed at kids, and the humor may not be too sophisticated, but it's had decent box-office. (Rated PG)

20 May, 2010 /