Festivals

[click "Play" to hear Alec Loorz speak with Susan about climate change and young people]

 

kicker: teen activist featured at Moving Mountains Symposium

Alec-photo Ask Victoria Loorz about her Mother's Day. Likely she will respond by telling you what her son was up to.

And no, he was not out raising hell Ferris Bueller style. Neither was behaving like the proverbial teen skulking in his room. For sure he wasn't sexting. The thought would never occur.

For Mother's Day, March 8, 16-year-old Alec Loorz, through his nonprofit iMatterMarch, had arranged for a series of more than 100 marches in states across the country and 25 countries around the world (including Kuwait) to proclaim a teen revolution. The goal: Let the world know climate change is not about money. It is not about power. It is not about convenience. It is about the future of a generation too young to vote, but aiming to protect its future.

Want to know more?

[click "Play" to listen to Paul Colangelo's conversation with Susan]  

Moose, water, sky Each year, Mountainfilm in Telluride hands out a Commitment Grant. The award is designed to help creative individuals tell important stories in keeping with the spirit of the event: they are about "Celebrating Indomitable Spirits," the theme of Mountainfilm, and turning Awareness into Action, the motto for 2011 and a running subtext of the event.

Mountainfilm's Commitment Grant goes to filmmakers, artists, adventurers and photographers whose projects are designed to have a positive and tangible effect on vital issues concerning people, places and ideas under siege some place on the map. Photographer Paul Colangelo received one of five $5,000 grants handed out last year. The grant was for Paul's photographic exposition entitled "Sacred Headwaters, Sacred Journey" about the shared birthplace of three of British Columbia’s great salmon-bearing rivers, the Stikine, Skeena and Nass.

Mountainfilm in Telluride kicks off the summer festival season in town. And the official kick-off of that party gets underway with Mountainfilm's Gallery Walk.Twelve different venues around town host receptions (drinks and hors d'oeuves ) for artists selected by Festival director David Holbrooke....

Multimedia Site Lights the Way to 33rd Annual Weekend and Beyond

In the midst of preparing for its biggest-ever festival, Mountainfilm in Telluride completely re-made its website. Mountainfilm executive director Peter Kenworthy says the timing was just right.

“To be able to unveil our new site just as we announce this year’s film list is perfect,” says Kenworthy. “It will mean immediate exposure. Right away we will engage our audiences as never before in our world. We couldn’t be happier. It made this winter a little busy but a spring launch is ideal.”

[click "Play" to listen to Wade Davis' conversation with Susan]  

Wade, fireplace Ethnographer, writer, photographer, filmmaker, licensed river guide, Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and major supporter of Mountainfilm in Telluride, Wade Davis returns for the 33rd annual gathering of the tribe, May 27 – May 30, 2011.

Wade is joined by other wide awake beings, among them, writer Terry Tempest Williams; the voice of youth eco-activists, Tim DeChristopher; eco-adventurer David de Rothschild; Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, co-creators of Peabody-winning PBS documentary "King Corn." With this year's line-up, Mountainfilm director David Holbrooke may just manage to trump last year, which was Mountainfilm's best year ever.
[click "Play" to hear Jesse's interview with Jake Norton and Wende Valentine]

 

 

by J James McTigue

Jake Norton Jake Norton is an Eddie Bauer First Ascent athlete and world-renowned climber, photographer and guide. He has a list of accolades as tall as Everest, a mountain he has attempted six times and summitted three. His career has taken him to the top of the world’s highest mountains and on explorations across the globe. His newest endeavor is Challenge 21, a campaign to climb 21 peaks, raise 2.1 million dollars and get 2.1 million people involved in clean water initiatives around the world. 

He will be a guest judge for the Charlie Fowler Award at this year’s Mountainfilm in Telluride and a presenter at the Saturday morning coffee talks to discuss climbing the second highest peak in the world, K2. Norton speaks passionately of mountains, but more so of the impact they have had on him.

Wade, mountains Wade Davis is a fixture at Mountainfilm in Telluride and that's a good thing.

Telluride Inside... and Out interviewed Davis in 1997 on his first ever visit to Mountainfilm in Telluride, the town he took by storm. His subject at the time was his then latest book, One River, a tribute to the life and work of one of his mentors, the legendary explorer/botanist Richard Evan Schultes, about the discoveries Davis and protege Tim Plowman made on their odyssey through the Amazonian jungle in the mid-1970s. Since then, there have been many other books and many miles traveled. With Davis, the sky's the limit. Well, maybe not. The man is unstoppable.

[click "Play" to hear Ian Cheney's conversation with Susan]

 

Ian Cheney Wicked Delicate is one helluva compliment paid to a good blueberry pie in the state of Maine, one of the two addresses (the other is Massachusetts)  where Ian Cheney grew up. It is also the name of the documentary film advocacy project founded in 2006 by Ian and Curt Ellis.

Under the auspices of Wicked Delicate, Ian and Curt, fellow graduates of Yale, co-created, co-produced and co-starred in the feature documentary "King Corn," granted a George Foster Peabody Award in 2009. "King Corn" follows Ian and Curt as they discover where America's food comes from when they plant a single acre of corn and follow it from seed to dinner plate.

Andrea, Tunnel to Towers Mud season in Telluride ends with Memorial Weekend, May 27 – May 30, with the coming together of the tribe for the celebration that opens the summer festival season: Mountainfilm in Telluride. What began as a homespun gathering of outdoor enthusiasts...

[click "Play", Susan speaks with Andrea Garbarini and Beth Gage]

 

Andrea in Rwanda
Andrea Garbarini in Rwanda

The events of 9/11 marked a turning point in the history of our country: America lost its innocence. Even in Telluride we no longer lived in splendid isolation from the violence that  impacts lives across the globe every single day. Suddenly, violently, our corner of the Big Blue Marble acquired a discernible crack. We became vulnerable. 

For the families who lost loved ones, the implications of the tragedy of 9/11 go way beyond the geopolitical to profoundly personal. And the recent execution of Osama Bin Laden does not change much. Terrorism with a capital "T" has entered our vocabulary and there is still no turning back.

A new documentary by Telluride locals George & Beth Gage, "From the Ground Up," is a tribute to those people, telling the story of five widows of  FDNY firefighters, men who lost their lives trying to save others. In just a half hour, the film gives depth and breadth to Mountainfilm's motto: "Celebrating Indomitable Spirit."