| FESTIVAL { May 22-25, 2009 } | THANK YOU | WORLD TOUR { Year-Round } |
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MOUNTAINFILM media kit Quick Links Background Information
Our motto is, “Celebrating Indomitable Spirit.” The spirit we celebrate may be of a vital eco-system or a fragile one. It may be of an endangered culture or of one courageous soul. It may be of a grassroots sustainability movement or of the struggle of a species on the brink of extinction. In whichever case, it is always a spirit that is unique, important and eminently laudable. “Dedicated to educating and inspiring audiences about issues that matter, cultures worth exploring, environments worth preserving and conversations worth sustaining.” We fulfill our mission with passion and joy over four days every Memorial Day weekend against the backdrop of the sky-piercing peaks of the San Juan Mountains. The festival has become the favored rendezvous for an international coterie of caring and concerned artists, activists, adventurers and advocates, the majority of whom are at the leading edge of their fields. Many of the 2,000 people that the festival attracts annually return year after year and are unhesitant in naming the festival as one of the most moving and important events in their lives. The Telluride festival begins each year with its Moving Mountains Symposium. This full-day event has a different topical theme each year that is explored, discussed and debated by a panel of world class experts drawn from many and varied disciplines. In 2007, the Symposium theme was Energy. For 2008, it will be Water. Mountainfilm on Tour is our vehicle to reach a larger audience with the powerful messages of the pioneering films that we showcase at the festival. The tour currently travels to over 100 locations worldwide and serves audiences totaling some 30,000 people. Many of our audiences are made up of students, ranging from elementary to secondary, college and even post-graduate levels, and from inner-city public schools to the Ivy League. Such is the nearly universal appeal and content value of Mountainfilm! Tour show hosts also comprise museums, community groups and non-profit organizations, other film festivals, outdoor organizations and events, resort venues, and corporate retreat facilitators. In addition to the value of its educational and entertainment content, Mountainfilm on Tour is often turned to as a platform for fundraising by hosting entities. As a relatively small and intimate experience, and favored as it is by such excellent and inspirational films, presenters, speakers and guests, the Mountainfilm festival comes quite naturally by its reputation as the premier event of its genre in the world. But there is more that marks it as truly special: it has the power to change lives. Change lives!?! Yes. Directly and indirectly, Mountainfilm changes lives. It changes the lives of audience members, of special guests and featured artists, and of many of the people whose challenges and triumphs are depicted in its films. Mountainfilm has even changed the lives of endangered environments and eco-systems. We call it The Domino Effect of Mountainfilm, read the stories of how lives have changed. Part of Mountainfilm’s annual festival is designed specifically for young people. In addition to our Kidz Kino shows, that present inspirational and educational programming tailored to youth audiences, we have a program for students known as Rendezvous. Rendezvous provides a formal structure for active participation in viewing films, attending presentations, and meeting filmmakers and other special guests/educators. In 2006, 57 students were enrolled in the Rendezvous program. Mostly local students from Telluride and the surrounding area, the group also included five students from inner-city schools in Washington, DC. In addition to the benefit of educating young and receptive minds about cultural, social, and environmental issues that belong at the forefront of contemporary consciousness and modern thought, the Rendezvous program serves the community by empowering students to become a vital part of the public dialogue and information exchange that characterizes the festival. For the students from Washington DC, the visit to Telluride, was a unique and potentially life-altering experience. For rural and small-town local students, the opportunity to share perspectives and insights with inner-city kids was certainly an unprecedented episode and one that helped them appreciate far more fully their comparatively privileged circumstances. Washington students will again be a part of the Rendezvous program in 2007 with funding provided in part by the Ford Foundation. Whether at home in Telluride or on the road visiting schools around the country, the objective of Mountainfilm’s educational outreach is to directly connect students with content-rich, thought-provoking, solution-based film programming. We also strive to add further value whenever possible by providing personal interface with filmmakers, conservationists, social crusaders and explorers of many frontiers – land, sea, space and, most importantly, ideas. It is one thing to give exposure to issues and inequities. It is another to champion solutions. Throughout the four-day annual festival in Telluride, Mountainfilm filmmakers, artists, speakers and guests avail themselves liberally to each other and to their audiences to explore answers to problems and strategies for success. Between the bookends of an opening filmmakers’ dinner and a closing picnic, breakfast talks, gallery walks, book signings and social events serve as platforms for question and answer and dialogue that is action-oriented. And, most notably, Mountainfilm sponsors and hosts an NGO and non-profit exposition each day of the festival – The Next Step – where specific concerns and interests can be addressed in greater depth, and where participation moves from words to action. At the 2007 festival, 11 organizations were represented at The Next Step exposition. They came from a broad cross-section of civic, social, environmental and charitable enterprises. Officers, spokespeople and volunteers for the entities were available throughout the festival to disseminate information and solicit public support for their respective causes. Most of those causes had direct thematic connection to festival programming, making The Next Step a natural segue from inside theaters and films to outside action. There has, perhaps, never before been a time when Mountainfilm’s mission statement and motto have had more resonance with more people than they do today. As social, political, cultural and environmental crises proliferate, Mountainfilm provides a vision that is stable, clear, intelligent and powerful. Following is a sampling of testimonials to that vision, both as it is presented at the festival in Telluride and on tour. As much as anything, these serve as our measures of success and are representative of the kinds of tributes that have consistently been paid us over the past three decades. Great films, great place, great people! – Galen Rowell, adventure photographer, author An amazing event! It is a program that is both dazzling to the eye and richly layered with ideas about the breadth of culture and craft. It reminds us of the force of filmmaking about things that matter, worlds worth exploring, and conversations worth sustaining. – Ken Burns, filmmaker Mountainfilm in Telluride is an extraordinary event that every year, somehow, manages to pull together a cross section of filmmakers and challenging thinkers and activists from all over the planet to share new perspectives and original work that is ahead of the headlines in virtually any category that you could think of…from religion to exploration to cultural issues. The participants are smart, edgy, and without a shred of complacency. – Maryanne Culpepper, National Geographic There are other film festivals that are aesthetically interesting, but no others that I know of are so politically, socially, culturally and environmentally important. I wish that every moviegoer in America could find his way to Telluride. – Andre Gregory, actor, playwright Mountainfilm in Telluride is the single most inspiring event that I attend each year. It is a chance to rub elbows with modern-day heroes, with people who are actually making a difference. A chance to see films that would be lost. A chance to find out what’s really happening in the world, and to meet people who are living their dreams. – Ace Kvale, adventure photographer All the best people I’ve ever known I met at Mountainfilm. - Wade Davis, ethno-botanist The Mountainfilm World Tour is a visually dazzling and compelling experience that leaves you with an array of feelings: shock, pride, sorrow, and – above all – hope. Wrapped in a deceptively entertaining package that manages to both move and inspire, these films will make you want to be a better global citizen. – Sydney Stowe, Dartmouth College Rare and remarkable films came together that day to make a gem of an afternoon. So much of what was so good combined to make magic. The more I learn about what the traveling part of your festival does – the more enthusiastic I become. – Debbie Rothberg, Smithsonian National Museum A current list of the Board of Directors is available here. A current list of the Advisory Board is available here. |
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