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Festivals

[Click "Play" button to hear Susan's conversation with Jimmy Herring]

Telluride Jazz, May 5-7. Sideman out front: Jimmy Herring

L_e6755d8529ba3cd6cb3ad15886d5e16f He has been the legend behind the legends, a musician's musician, but the 33rd annual Telluride Jazz Celebration, June 5 - June 7, will set the record straight. After three decades as a sideman, guitarist Jimmy Herring is finally getting exactly what he deserves: center stage.

Fusion guitarists that claim the middle ground generally skew one way or the other: former Telluride Jazz Celebration headliner John Scofield, for example, has deep roots in jazz,  and Carlos Santana is a rocker at heart. Jimmy is a rarity: he stakes his claim where jazz harmonies and rhythmic concepts and the edgy power of classic rock come together, improvising with an intensity that underlines his roots.

Jimmy's formidable chops have been used to great advantage by outfits ranging from Widespread Panic to the Dead, Phil Lesh and Friends (a Dead offshoot), Project Z, the Allman Brothers, Col. Bruce Hampton's Aquarium Rescue Unit, Jazz is Dead and others.

31 May, 2009 /

Memorial Day in Telluride was wet and windy. There were movie surprises early in the day: "The Cove" was an unheralded entry and grabbed one of the "TBA" slots. Audience reaction was wild, including a long standing ovation at the conclusion. "Cove" tells of the...

28 May, 2009 /

IMGP0406 Sunday late afternoon, Telluride: A double rainbow appeared in the sky at the end of town, a colorful postscript to a hailstorm and soggy Memorial weekend. Perhaps the light show was also an auspicious sign. Perhaps we will succeed in facing down some of the many global challenges we are faced with today –  Mountainfilm's hope and its reason for being.

Mountainfilm is not just about mountains or films. The opening shot of Telluride's busy summer festival season has evolved into a hydra beast, its multiple heads looking back at its roots in mountains and mountaineering, at fixed points in the present – endangered cultures, eco-systems, species, and ideas – and into the future at the positive change the nonprofit exists to effect through lectures, breakfast talks, gallery walks, Mountainfilm on Tour, and yes, films.

Mountainfilm's directors, David Holbrooke and Peter Kenworthy, say their event is not just about talking. It is about doing. And not just doing, doing to effect positive change. In its maturity – Mountainfilm just turned 31 – they  focus a little less on adrenaline, and a little more on activism. The writing was on the wall from Day One: Speaker after speaker, film after film reminded us that the real work is out there in the field.

26 May, 2009 /

by Kris Holstrom

The New Community Coalition worked hand in hand with Telluride Mountainfilm staff to brainstorm composting, recycling and trash reduction this year. The opening event, on May 21, was the dinner for the filmmakers and guests at a beautiful spot high up in the Preserve.

The evening was damp and delightful and included delicious food by Lucas Price and an amazing mix of interesting people. Even better, from the waste side of things, it was a total success.

 Zero is not always a good thing. It's an insult when used to describe a person. Describing waste is a whole other story, but in that context, zero is so difficult to achieve, it is often stated as a goal, rather than as something truly possible. Thursday night raised the bar: Mountainfilm got about as close as you can get.

26 May, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to hear Steve Winter talking with Susan, and click the YouTube box below to see a slideshow of Winter's photgraphy ]

Tell imovie49 Two years ago, a group of "fellows" from the International League of Conservation Photographers came to Telluride, including James Balog Wade Davis, and Chris Rainier, all three long-time Mountainfilm supporters and popular featured guests. Joining them this year is another member of the ILCP, Steve Winter, since 1995, also a major contributor to National Geographic, and Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008, for his haunting images of the elusive snow leopard.

Photography is a democratic medium: most people don’t paint or draw, but almost everyone owns a camera. It would be delusional, however, to describe snapshots of family get-togethers and beach outings, even the images shot by eco-tourists on their adventures in the Alaskan wilderness or African savannah, as art. In no way can drugstore prints be compared to the work of Ansel Adams, Eugene Atget, Alfred Stieglitz, Annie Leibovitz, Balog, Rainier, or Nan Goldin, all acknowledged masters. That would be like comparing Elvis to Mozart.

22 May, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to hear Susan's conversation with Roko Belic]

30 45 In 1999, former Telluride Mountainfilm director Rick Silverman shared his film favorites. High on the list was "Genghis Blues." The heart-warmng film by brothers Adrian and Roko Belic tells the story of a Tuvan throat-singer Kongar-ol-Ondar and a blind San Franciscan bluesman, Paul Pena, who taught himself to throat sing, a popular form of entertainment in southern Siberia. Ten years later, Festival program director David Holbrooke has asked the brothers and the "Elvis of Tuva" to return to town for a program encore.

Following their score at the 21st annual Mountainfilm, Roko partnered with Italian explorer and author Folco Terzani to make another film, "Twilight Men, the true story of a Westerner and an Indian holy man who go into the Himalayas in search of an enlightened master.

22 May, 2009 /

In addition to Steve Winter's images of snow leopards and Jane Goren's sculptural puns around the Symposium's food theme, plus images of rock 'n roll icons, Friday –  Sunday of MountainFilm, the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art once again features Himalayan jewelry (old...

22 May, 2009 /

Lani- for Susan and Telluride [click "Play" button to hear Susan's interview with Lani Alo]

Entrepreneur/author/environmentalist Paul Hawken was a Telluride Mountainfilm guest in 2007. Telluride was a stop in a tour explaining the idea behind his latest book "Blessed Unrest," a sprawling grassroots movement comprised of tens of millions ordinary and not-so-ordinary individuals and groups busily working to safeguard the environment, ensure social justice, and resist the threat of globalization on indigenous cultures. The movement consists of research institutes, community development agencies, village-and citizen-based organizations, corporations, networks, faith-based groups, trusts and foundations, all trying to defend against corrupt politics and climate change, corporate predation, and death of the oceans, governmental indifference and pandemic poverty, industrial forestry and farming, depletion of soil and water, and more… Trying to describe the breadth and depth of the global grassroots commitment would be like trying to hold the ocean in your hand.

Mountainfilm regular, ethnobotanist/author/environmental activist Wade Davis once described the people Hawken is talking about in "Blessed Unrest," as "dharma saints." In a big way, "dharma saints" is what The Goldman Environment Prize is all about, ordinary people taking extraordinary action.

22 May, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to listen to Chef Ming]

Chef Ming is MC, Telluride Mountainfilm food symposium

Wok_18_la Award-winning chef/entrepreneur Ming Tsai is the keynote speaker of Telluride Mountainfilm's Moving Mountains Symposium, a gallimaufry of ideas on the subject of food.

If we are what we eat, Americans could be in deep poop. About one-third of the nation's adults are now obese. Deep in the Heartland, Americans still chant "Supersize me," while beyond our borders, the threat of hunger has long been attached to humanity like Peter Pan's shadow. 

Less is certainly not more when it comes to water and raw materials to grow food. When we spice the pot with increasingly unpredictable weather patterns (which decrease agricultural production), it will take a miracle or a second Green Revolution to increase food production to meet the demand by 2050, when the much quoted UN  population estimate of 9.1 billion becomes reality.

21 May, 2009 /

[ click "Play" button to hear Susan's interview with Josh Aronson]

DSCN6170  Part-time local Josh Aronson is a regular at Telluride Mountainfilm, an event that began as a homespun gathering of gnarly outdoor adventurers and evolved into a crazy quilt of lively talks, memorable exhibits, and yes, films. (Mountainfilm's current program director, David Holbrooke, is also a filmmaker.)

Josh received an Oscar nomination in 2001 for his very first film, "Sound & Fury," which documents one family's struggle over whether or not to provide two deaf children with cochlear implants, devices that can stimulate hearing. Implants are hot-buttons in the deaf community: while they provide easier access to the hearing world, they also challenge one's identity within the deaf culture. "Sound & Fury" screened at Mountainfilm following its premiere at Sundance.

21 May, 2009 /