Mountainfilm Blog

Mountainfilm's blog has evolved quickly and steadily to become the engine that drives Mountainfilm.org. This steady current of images, words and action carry global news about Mountainfilm themes, issues and personalities. Please join in the conversation, and let us know what you think about the cultural, environmental and socio-political issues and  heroes of adventure and activism that we highlight.

Photography’s Voice: Mountain2Mountain in the Streets of Afghanistan

Posted by Mountainfilm on Nov 5, 2012 - 4:21pm / Full Article »

Photography has always been a form of expression, but more than that, photography can also be a form of activism. Photography is voice. Mountain2Mountain— a nonprofit that was founded upon the ethos of connecting communities and cultures and the belief that the power of voice can create change — is in Afghanistan this fall, exhibiting a traveling show titled “Streets of Afghanistan,” a cultural exhibit of life-size photographs that depict life in Afghanistan as Afghans see it.

Anna Brones is traveling with “Streets of Afghanistan,” along with founder Shannon Galpin, and posting updates on M2M’s website. Here are a few highlights cobbled together from their travel updates:

Fundraising for Filmmakers: Where’s the Money?

Posted by Mountainfilm on Nov 2, 2012 - 9:25am / Full Article »

A week ago, Good Pitch held a gathering in San Francisco that was a platform for documentary filmmakers to network and fundraise. Having leveraged more than $3.4 million from various entities, Good Pitch (which was created by BritDoc and the Sundance Institute) selected seven films in various stages of production from applicants around the world. The filmmaking teams are then invited to present to an audience that is able to support these projects through funding and outreach.

Halting Species Extinction: The Price Tag

Posted by Mountainfilm on Oct 26, 2012 - 12:31pm / Full Article »

In 2010, Mountainfilm in Telluride examined the issue of extinction for our Moving Mountains Symposium. The list of endangered creatures has been growing for generations, a crisis E.O. Wilson and other scientists say is caused by human destruction to natural habitats.

World governments have committed to try to halt the extinction of species and safeguard important biodiversity sites for nature by 2020, but this promise hasn’t seen much serious number crunching. Until now.

A recent study, published in Science, sets the price at $80 billion per year — the sum of $4 billion annually and another $76 billion to protect and manage key habitats.

The Food Movement: California’s Prop 37

Posted by Mountainfilm on Oct 23, 2012 - 12:51pm / Full Article »

Come November 6, in addition to the national election and other state ballot issues, a few million Californians will vote on food. California, long the rebel state that paves the way for the rest of the nation, has Proposition 37 on the menu ballot, which would require that genetically modified (G.M.) foods carry a label.

It seems a simple concept to let people know what they’re eating, but as food author, journalist and activist and Michael Pollan writes in an article titled “Vote for the Dinner Party,” Big Food doesn’t see it that way:

Joel Cohen Video: An Intro to Demography

Posted by Mountainfilm on Oct 18, 2012 - 10:37am / Full Article »

Mountainfilm in Telluride 2012 focused on population, and although the Moving Mountains Symposium is over, we’re not closing the door on the discussion. It’s a many-layered subject and affects most every ecosystem on the planet.

In this video, Joel Cohen, a professor of populations at Rockefeller and Columbia Universities (who couldn’t make it to our symposium), outlines the complexity of the topic while simultaneously simplifying the difficult subject.

Before you begin, a few caveats:

  1. The video is 43 minutes.
  2. The intended audience is students who might consider demography as a course of study, but the sales pitch on either end is brief.

If the caveats deter you in any way from setting aside 43 minutes to watch, here are a few incentives to counteract them:

Mountainfilm in New York City: An Unlikely Locale?

Posted by Mountainfilm on Oct 16, 2012 - 9:34am / Full Article »
Since David Holbrooke started working as the festival director at Mountainfilm in 2007, he’s split his time between New York City and Telluride, Colorado. This weekend, his two different worlds will collide when Mountainfilm on Tour visits New York’s Lincoln Center for three days of films and guest speakers on October 19-21. Below, he describes what New Yorkers will appreciate in Mountainfilm’s upcoming programming.

Mountainfilm travels all over the world — Brazil, Chile, China and Norway in just the last month — but New York City is, at first glance, an unlikely locale for the festival. Aside from the obvious physical landscape, there are also profound cultural differences. As someone who has lived in both places, however, I know that there are more common interests than one might think.

Wilderness Crunch: Northern States Feel it Most

Posted by Mountainfilm on Oct 11, 2012 - 9:39am / Full Article »
We love the outdoors at Mountainfilm in Telluride, but a new study, “Outdoor Recreation in the Northern United States," shows that America's growing population and increasing interest in the outdoors is straining state and federal recreation areas, particularly in the northern states. The research, commissioned by the U.S. Forest Service, looks at 20 states in the north — extending from Maine to Minnesota and from Missouri to Maryland — and concludes that while the area’s population growth was less than the rest of the country, there will still be a conflict for land and water resources, especially when it comes to outdoor activities.

In this northern region, approximately 90 to 94 million people age 16 and older engage in outdoor recreation that ranges from hunting and fishing to orienteering, kayaking and mountain biking. The most popular activities are pretty tame: walking for pleasure, family gatherings outdoors, viewing/ photographing natural scenery, visiting outdoor nature centers,gardening or landscaping, and picnicking.

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