Our 2013 Film Festival entries provide insightful and thought-provoking messages on a variety of issues. We’re sure you’ll agree that our selections merit recognition for quality and production.

Wild Things

Native carnivores balance ecosystems and keep wilderness healthy. But they are also seen as a threat to livestock, and for decades ranchers and government trappers have slaughtered them. The Wildlife Services program within U.S.D.A. kills a hundred thousand coyotes, wolves and other native carnivores annually. It is a battle against nature that is costly, brutal, and not very effective. Does the battle really need to be fought? Wild Things introduces audiences to progressive ranchers learning to peacefully coexist with these animals and features scientists, conservationists and even former Wildlife Services trappers, who believe it is time for a major change in the way we treat our magnificent native carnivores. Click for a preview.

Sanctuary
Taos, New Mexico is bordered by a backyard of wildlife and wild land. Both take a beating as outdoor users love the Carson National Forest to death. Some of those users recognized the damage they caused and decided to instigate a movement for resource recovery. Illegal trails close. Sanctuaries open. Habitat bounces back. Wildlife comes back. See a refuge restored in just a few short years.

The Man Who Lived on His Bike

I love being on a bike. It helps me feel free. I get it from my dad. After 382 days spent riding through the sreets of Montreal, being sometimes quite cold, sometimes quite hot – and sometimes quite scared, I dedicate this movie to him.

Last Light

There is an undeniable magic in alpenglow– the final seconds of a day’s light that give mountains impossible texture and life before falling into shadow. In the endless spring hours of Haines, Alaska, light is as bountiful as snow. But to capture the best of both, that singularly lit moment that turns powder into frozen red fire, you must live all day in the midst of them; ready to drop in long after the helicopters have gone home and your line is made magic in the last of the light. Featuring Stephan Drake, Forrest Shearer, and Johan Jonsson
Presented by Patagonia

Too Special to Drill
The Center for American Progress, in partnership with the Sierra Club, undertook a series of video mini-documentaries that revealed three places held in the public trust threatened by pending proposals to mine and drill in or around them. In Part Three, natural gas drilling would bring an ignoble end to Wyoming’s spectacular Noble Basin and its residents’ exceptional way of life.

 

Timber

I used MY natural resources to make a film about OUR natural resources! This short animated film uses the trimming of a beard to make a point about irresponsible usage of everything the Earth has to offer.

Potato Farmers
John O’Conner grew Idaho potatoes where they had never been grown before. Then – with mountain snowpack dwindling – the state bought his water, permanently drying up the farmland. This short film is part of a series that explores global climate change through people who live and work in the Pacific Northwest.

 

Brower Youth Awards: Maya Salisedo
For Salsedo, the personal is political. Salsedo is the descendant of immigrants from Puerto Rico who found their way to Hawaii in order to work in sugar cane fields. Her family has always had trouble accessing healthy food. That experience with food insecurity spurred Salsedo to dedicate herself to advancing food justice. In 2011 — while working as a youth organizer with the Earth Island Institute-sponsored project Rooted in Community — she proposed creating a Youth Food Bill of Rights. The declaration grew out of Salsedo’s vision for a food system that is good for consumers, producers, and the planet and which gives local communities more control over the food they eat. Salsedo has since motivated her peers to spread the word about the Youth Food Bill across the nation. Her work has provided the foundation for dialogues about what food justice means to today’s youth.

Young Voices for the Planet, Team Marine
High school students are concerned about the effects of plastic bags on life in the ocean and on CO2 emissions. They dress up as plastic bag monsters and act to successfully ban plastic bags in their city of Santa Monica.

Public Lands, Private Profits: A Grand Threat
The Center for American Progress, in partnership with the Sierra Club, undertook a series of video mini-documentaries that revealed three places held in the public trust threatened by pending proposals to mine and drill in or around them. In Part One, we head to the Grand Canyon, where a Canadian company is using outdated environmental studies to bring uranium mining back to the one of the world’s most extraordinary natural wonders.

Western Colorado congress is an alliance for community action empowering people to protect and enhance their quality of life in western Colorado.