You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2010.
We’re excited to announce the International League of Conservation Photographers will be in Telluride for the fest this year. Their newest project? 12 Shots, an outlet for emerging photographers to tell a story in just 12 frames.
As part of our photo contest, we’re featuring some of our favorites here on the blog. Every week we’ll be bringing you another photo that in one way or another reflects our mission statement: educating and inspiring audiences about issues that matter, cultures worth exploring, environments worth preserving and conversations worth sustaining.
We chose this photo of the Beartooth Highway because it represents a critical dilemma we face in preserving beautiful landscapes and yet making them accessible to everyone. As the highway provides access to Yellowstone and has been dubbed the most beautiful highway in America, it certainly must suffer from congestion and (relatively) heavy traffic during the high season. However, it is also critical that Americans, and people worldwide, have access to such an important part of our heritage and the ability to appreciate its beauty. Thus, the image pertains to both an issue that matters and an environment worth preserving.
For your chance to be featured on The Conversation and possibly winning free gear and a VIP Festival Package, please submit your photo. More details here.
Pico Iyer (Mountainfilm guest, 2008) is enchanted by a mountain-top city on the cusp of great change
The Observer (UK)
February 14, 2010
I walked out on to the balcony in Banak Shol guesthouse in Lhasa, Tibet, in 1985 and looked up to where the Potala Palace sat, on a ridge overlooking the small cluster of traditional whitewashed houses.
A few backpackers were gathered on the terrace, talking about the days of hard travel they’d survived to get there. Tibet had opened up to the world only a few years before, and all of us had the sense of stepping into a place almost never before seen by foreign eyes.
The Banak Shol could not have been a less propitious setting for romance. There were no windows in my little cell and I had to crawl into it before flopping on to the bed. Yet even then, on that first night, I knew, as one does in love, that I was in a place I’d never see again.
The kids on the streets were already asking for pens from the foreigners who arrived, and a Rambo Café in Lhasa was clearly on its way. I realised that the same impulse that had allowed me to come here would ensure that Lhasa would not remain a deeply Tibetan settlement for much longer. Besides, many of its temples were already in ruins, and by the time I came back, five years later, the place was under martial law, with soldiers on the rooftops.
Next morning, the mountains were so sharp and bright in the high, thin air, I felt light-headed. I stepped out of my real life in that crystal light, and seemed to be looking at everything from a great, clear height. One of the things I saw from there was the end of a romantic Tibet.
Mountainfilm is dedicated to educating and inspiring audiences about issues that matter, cultures worth exploring, environments worth preserving and conversations worth sustaining. That’s our mission statement and we think it nicely captures what we’re about. We wonder what it may convey to others.
To help us find out, we’re launching a contest leading up to our 2010 festival to find photos that communicate either all or any part of our mission statement. What kind of photos do we expect to find? Anything from inspiring adventure photos to landscape shots of beautiful natural spaces to portraits of people taking action and working for positive change. The contest theme is broad because we want to see all the ways that our mission may speak to you.
Limye Lavi in Haiti is urgently looking for tents.
Not just your typical 2-man or even 5-man camp tents; they need BIG temporary structure type tents, the kind you might rent for an outdoor wedding reception.
They will be used as school rooms in rural villages. Last word was, they are looking for 150 large ones.
If you have a connection to someone with the means and equipment to donate 1, 5 or 100 tents, contact us (entries@mountainfilm.org) and we’ll put you in touch directly.
[The following was co-written by Naomi Klein, author of #1 NYT bestseller The Shock Doctrine, Terry Tempest Williams, world renowned wildlife author, Bill Mckibben, founter of 350.org and author of The End Of Nature, and Dr. James Hansen, author of Storms of my Grandchildren, and who is regarded as the world’s leading climatologist. All recognize the trial of Tim DeChristopher to be a turning point in the climate movement. Included are links to resources for travel to Utah]
Dear Friends,
The epic fight to ward off global warming and transform the energy system that is at the core of our planet’s economy takes many forms: huge global days of action, giant international conferences like the one that just failed in Copenhagen, small gestures in the homes of countless people.
But there are a few signal moments, and one comes next month, when the federal government puts Tim DeChristopher on trial in Salt Lake City. Tim—“Bidder 70”– pulled off one of the most creative protests against our runaway energy policy in years: he bid for the oil and gas leases on several parcels of federal land even though he had no money to pay for them, thus upending the auction. The government calls that “violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act” and thinks he should spend ten years in jail for the crime; we call it a noble act, a profound gesture made on behalf of all of us and of the future.
Tim’s action drew national attention to the fact that the Bush Administration spent its dying days in office handing out a last round of favors to the oil and gas industry. After investigating irregularities in the auction, the Obama Administration took many of the leases off the table, with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar criticizing the process as “a headlong rush.” And yet that same Administration is choosing to prosecute the young man who blew the whistle on this corrupt process.
We cannot let this stand. When Tim disrupted the auction, he did so in the fine tradition of non-violent civil disobedience that changed so many unjust laws in this country’s past. Tim’s upcoming trial is an occasion to raise the alarm once more about the peril our planet faces. The situation is still fluid—the trial date has just been set, and local supporters are making plans for how to mark the three-day proceedings. But they are asking people around the country to flood into Salt Lake City in mid-March. If you come, there will be ample opportunity for both legal protest and civil disobedience. For example:
#Outside the courthouse, there will be a mock trial, with experts like NASA’s Jim Hansen providing the facts that should be heard inside the chambers. We don’t want Tim on trial—we want global warming on the stand.
#Demonstrators will be using the time-honored tactics of civil disobedience to make their voices heard outside the courthouse in an effort to prevent “business as usual”—it’s business as usual that’s wrecking the earth.
#There will be evening concerts and gatherings, including a “mini-summit” to share ideas on how the climate movement should proceed in the years ahead. This is a people’s movement that draws power from around the globe; for a few days its headquarters will be Salt Lake City.
You can get the most up-to-date news at climatetrial.com, including schedules for non-violence training, and information about legal representation. If you’re coming, bring not only your passion but also your creativity—we need lots of art and music to help make the point that we won’t sit idly by while the government tries to scare the environmental movement into meek cooperation. This kind of trial is nothing but intimidation—and the best answers to intimidation are joy and resolve. That’s what we’ll need in Utah.
We know it’s short notice. Some of us won’t be able to make it to Utah because we have other commitments or are limiting travel, and if you’re in the same situation, climatetrial.com will also have details of solidarity actions in other parts of the country. If you can contribute money to help make the week’s events possible, click here. But more than your money we need your body, your brains, and your heart. In a landscape of little water, where redrock canyons rise upward like praying hands, we can offer our solidarity to the wild: wild lands and wild hearts. Tim DeChristopher deserves and needs our physical and spiritual support in the name of a just and vibrant community.
Thank you for standing with us,
Naomi Klein,
Bill McKibben,
Terry Tempest Williams
Dr. James Hansen
Please forward to your lists and contacts. Thank you.
The 2009 Oscar nominations were announced early this morning, and we are happy to see a few familiar faces in the line-up. Mountainfilm alumni stacked the documentary feature category, with three films that screened at Mountainfilm 2009 in the running: Burma VJ, The Cove and Food, Inc.
There are also a few more films on the larger list that we’re looking to play in May, 2010. We won’t tell you which ones just yet!
If you didn’t get a chance to see any of these films at at a Mountainfilm screening or elsewhere, you’ll probably get more opportunities now that they’ve been honored with Oscar nods. Check out the trailers, below:
Burma VJ
The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Conversation 