Mountainfilm Blogs: February 2012

National Geographic Fellow Promotes Scientific Approach to Happiness and Longevity

Telluride, Colorado (February 21, 2012) – New York Times bestselling author Dan Buettner will speak at Mountainfilm in Telluride’s annual festival this May 25 to 28. Buettner, also a National Geographic Fellow and internationally recognized researcher, authored Blue Zones:  Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest (2008), in which he identified five cultures where people live the longest and analyzed why people in these regions live such healthy lives. Blue Zones, as well as a second book Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way (2010), were both featured on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Liesl Clark has been to Mountainfilm in Telluride several times (with Lost on Everest, her film about finding George Mallory's body on Mt. Everest, amongst others). She continues to make documentaries about mountain subjects, and recently had a National Geographic special on PBS called Cave People of the Himalaya. Currently, she’s working on a potentially exciting new app called Cora that takes people with “trash” and connects them with others who will see it as treasure. Her team is looking for beta testers so check it out.

Have you ever noticed that catching a whiff of the ocean makes you feel differently? Wallace J. Nichols, a research assistant at the California Academy of Sciences and co-founder of Ocean Revolution, calls this reaction “Blue Mind.” He says, “When we think of the ocean — or hear the ocean, or see the ocean, or get in the ocean, even taste and smell the ocean, or all of those things at once — we feel something different than before that happened. For most people, it's generally good. It often makes us more open or contemplative. For many people, it reduces stress. And that's "Blue Mind."

So what’s Blue Mind got to do with anything? Nichols thinks it’s got a lot to do with how humans interact with the sea. OnEarth’s Jeff Greenwald learned more in a recent interview with Nichols.

Mountainfilm in Telluride screens numerous films with professional athletes — skiers, bikers and even climbers — who drop of a variety of altitude-inducing ledges, cliffs and kickers. Sometimes even the pros land badly and become grievously injured.  High Fives Foundation is a relatively new nonprofit organization based in Lake Tahoe that works with athletes who have suffered a life-altering injury while pursuing their dream in the winter action sports community.

The Washington Post recently reported on plummeting birth rates in Brazil, a country with traditionally big families. The consistency of this swing across such a large, economically, geographically and politically diverse country was striking to demographers. It reflects an even larger trend across much of Latin America, which has seen women go from having almost six children each in 1960 to an average of 2.3 today. This tendency has also reached Asia, which has seen similar declines, but as the population-focused Guttmacher Institute reports, much of sub-Saharan Africa remains all too fertile with birth rates double that of Asia and Latin America.

Audiences at Mountainfilm in Telluride have known about Greg Mortenson and his book Three Cups of Tea for nearly a decade because he’s been a guest at several festivals. Ten months ago, reports by “60 Minutes” and Jon Krakauer shattered Mortenson's past, present and future with allegations of financial impropriety and personal fabrications. Mortenson has been publicly quiet since, but as Outside magazine's Alex Heard reports, Mortenson — and the world around him — is very much in turmoil.

If we were to create a new nation, how might we begin? So asks Alex Hartley, a British artist who has started a public art project that is one of 12 pieces across the United Kingdom that will be part of the Cultural Olympiad in the Olympic summer of 2012. “Nowhereisland” is intended to tap into our values and beliefs as citizens, integrating the general public's thoughts; so far, there are over 5,000 "citizens" of the island who have started writing the island's constitution collectively. This isn't just a thought piece: Hartley found an actual island in Norway and received permission to tow it to the coast of England.

Nowhereisland - Alex Hartley from SituationsDirector on Vimeo.

Education is a major component of Mountainfilm's mission so that’s why we care about the nascent Green Schools Initiative, which calls itself a "global network of schools guiding schools." Its goal is to encourage schools to make their operations more environmentally friendly and energy efficient while also "greening" students. The initiative is a global operation with nearly 3,000 member schools. Is your school a member? Is your alma mater a member? Is your kid’s school a member?

The United Nations released an alarming report recently about population, a topic that will be the focus of Mountainfilm in Telluride's 2012 Moving Mountains Symposium. According to the report, nearly 3 billion people could end up impoverished by 2050. The U.N. argues that "The current global development model is unsustainable. To achieve sustainability, a transformation of the global economy is required." Ironically, the number of people on the planet living in "absolute poverty" has reduced to 27 percent from 46 percent in 1990, but with natural resources rapidly diminishing, these numbers are predicted to head in the wrong direction in the future.

Even if you’re not a climber, this is a fascinating story. It’s got all the elements of a good tale — a strong cast of characters, a stunning setting, tragedy and many complicated plot twists.

Once upon a time, an Italian named Casare Maestri and an Austrian called Toni Egger climbed one of the world’s most difficult peaks, Patagonia’s Cerro Torre, in 1959. Their success was marred by two significant factors: 1. Egger died after they summited, and 2. Maestri’s claim of success turned out to be a bold-faced lie.

Maestri returned to the climb in 1970 to defend his honor and climb the mountain once more, this time fixing thousands of feet of rope and using a gas-powered drill to install approximately 400 bolts up the granite spire. Again, he claimed success, although he was actually a few hundred feet short of the true summit — a minor detail he dismissed, saying this section was “not really part of the mountain,” because “it’ll blow away one of these days.”

On February 11, 2012, thousands are people around the globe will watch the award-winning film Happy, which won the Audience award at Mountainfilm in Telluride in 2011. From filmmaker Roko Belic, a longtime Mountainfilm regular — who, along with his brother Adrian, is one of the filmmakers behind Genghis Blues — Happy is infused with wisdom and warmth and abounds with life lessons with footage from more than fourteen countries. Because the filmmakers discovered that community is an important ingredient to happiness, we encourage you to find out where you can see Happy with your neighbors on February 11.

Our programming team — David Holbrooke and Emily Long — spent several days at the recent Sundance Film Festival, seeing documentaries to consider for Mountainfilm in Telluride.

Chris Sharma and Steve House Confirm Appearances in May

Telluride, Colorado (January 31, 2012) – Mountainfilm in Telluride presents a literal rock star lineup for its 34^th annual festival this May 25 to 28. Chris Sharma — considered one of the world’s best rock climbers — and Steve House, hailed as one of the best high-altitude mountaineers in the world — will attend this spring’s festival as guest speakers.

There is nothing quite like Sundance Film Festival, which darkened its theaters Sunday after 10 days of movie madness. Two representatives from Mountainfilm in Telluride — programmers David Holbrooke and Emily Long — went to Park City in search of films for the festival Telluride in May.