Mountainfilm Announces its 2026 Emerging Filmmaker Fellow Caroline Locke

Telluride, Colorado (September 14, 2026) – Mountainfilm is welcoming Caroline Locke as its 2026 Emerging Filmmaker Fellow for her documentary Shroompa Walks to Telluride. As an Emerging Filmmaker Fellow, Locke will receive support, mentorship and festival networking opportunities, including industry connections at Mountainfilm 2027 in Telluride over Memorial Day weekend.

Locke’s film, Shroompa Walks to Telluride, features inimitable poet and Telluride local Art Goodtimes on his 80th birthday, as he journeys on foot through Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, reflecting on aging, mortality, friendship and the wild landscape that has shaped his life.

Mountainfilm’s Festival Director, Crystal Merrill, shared: “The Mountainfilm team is proud to support Caroline’s project, which sits so close to Mountainfilm’s heart, as it follows the legendary Shroompa himself, Art Goodtimes, on the trail to Telluride. The film is cinematically beautiful and invites you to slow down, meander along with Art and, of course, enjoy his poetic and offbeat musings. It’s a delightful story and we’re glad to work with Caroline as she finishes the film.”

Caroline Locke is an emerging filmmaker and cinematographer whose work centers on experiential documentary and ecological storytelling. Raised in South Florida and based in Boulder, Colorado, she is interested in how people form meaning, identity and community through their relationships with place. A recent graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts program, Caroline is a filmmaker whose work is informed by a lifelong connection to water through sailing and wind sports and a curiosity about people who live close to the natural world. Her films are driven by close collaboration and lived experience, seeking to create immersive encounters that invite attention, connection and wonder. Shroompa Walks to Telluride reflects Caroline’s continued interest in ecological storytelling and marks her most ambitious documentary project to date.

“I grew up sailing and kitesurfing, so I’ve spent much of my life paying attention to wind, water, weather and the way you learn to move with forces much larger than yourself. I think that has shaped the way I make films. I’m interested in place as an active force in storytelling, in how relationships are altered by being embedded in it, and in tracing the cultural and philosophical lineages that grow out of those relationships.

In Shroompa Walks to Telluride, the mountain shapes the storytelling. Being out there together deepened our relationship as subject and director, and so much of what came out of the film was shaped by the environment we were moving through. Through this project, I’ve become increasingly interested in the communities of the San Juans, where relationships to place feel distilled into philosophy, culture, and ways of living that have been passed between people over generations. There is a lineage here that I hope to keep following in my future work.

I hope when people watch Shroompa, they can feel some of what it was like to move through those mountains with Art, rather than simply watch him do it. I’m incredibly excited and grateful to be this year’s Mountainfilm Emerging Filmmaker Fellow,” said Locke.

Mountainfilm’s Emerging Filmmaker Fellowship program began in 2018 as a way to provide critical support and resources to up-and-coming filmmakers early in their careers. Caroline Locke is the tenth Emerging Filmmaker Fellow. Previous fellows include:

Elif Koyutürk Hazen, Guardians of Anatolia
Kendi King, From Rodeo to Polo
Mitra Ghaffari, Bicycle Island
Alina Simone, Black Snow
Fiz Olajide, Underground Railroad Ride
Madeline Gordon, The Ark
Gabrielė Urbonaitė, Solastalgia
Ahmed Mansour, Brooklyn Inshallah
Matthew Maxwell, Finding Home in Boomtown

About Mountainfilm: Established in 1979, Mountainfilm is one of North America’s longest-running documentary film festivals, held annually over Memorial Day weekend in Telluride, Colorado. Mountainfilm is dedicated to using the power of film, art and ideas to inspire audiences to create a better world. The festival offers an immersive experience featuring a wide range of filmmakers, speakers, adventurers and activists in addition to screening cutting-edge, award-winning documentary films from around the world. Mountainfilm is an Academy Award® Qualifying Festival in the Documentary Short Film category. Mountainfilm on Tour also reaches audiences year-round through its global film program and through Mountainfilm for Students, an educational outreach initiative for youth. Simply put, Mountainfilm has the power to change lives. To learn more, visit www.mountainfilm.org. To join the conversation, please read Mountainfilm’s news and follow @mountainfilm on Instagram, Threads, Facebook and LinkedIn.