Join the Creston Valley Branch of Wildsight for the 5th annual Wild and Scenic Film Festival, an evening of outdoor adventure, at the at Prince Charles Secondary School Auditorium on Sat. Feb. 2, 2019. Show starts at 7pm. Door prizes galore. A variety of films featuring stunning cinematography, exotic adventure, and sometimes frontline activism are to be shown—there is something in nature for everyone. The Wild and Scenic Film Festival visits over 150 locations on its North American tour, entertaining and inspiring viewers to make the world a better place. Here is the line-up of films:
1. Ghosts of the Arctic
Follow the grit and determination of polar photographer Joshua Holko as he traverses the frozen landscape of Svalbard, in the high Arctic, to encounter polar bears on foot. Taking place during one of the coldest periods in the last few years, the crew suffered frostbite and camera failures during the filming process. The aerials featured in the film do great justice to the stark beauty of the arctic landscape.
2. Return from Desolation
For Garrett Eaton, a remote and rugged section of the Green River called Desolation Canyon is more than a river; it is a place that brought him back from the brink to reclaim a life he almost lost. At his core, Garrett is a river guide, but his story doesn’t start here. Returning to the wild rivers and canyonlands of his youth, Garrett found true freedom. With each pull of the oars, Garrett reclaimed his faith, his sobriety and most importantly — his family.
3. Love of Place
When an invasive species plant threatens to take over a beautiful desert river, an obsessive park ranger sets out to kill it
4. Irreparable Harm
The Tlingit people have called the vibrant coastline of Southeast Alaska home for over 10,000 years, and continue to practice a way of life intimately tied to the ocean and the largest remaining temperate rainforest on earth. Now, contamination from industrial mining is threatening the safety of the wild food sources that make Alaska so unique. Irreparable Harm gives powerful voices to the Alaska Native communities and conservation groups standing up to protect the cultural and ecological values that make this magnificent marine ecosystem an irreplaceable treasure.
5. Wildlife and the Wall
Filmmaker Ben Masters (Unbranded) goes into the heart of the Big Bend, the last true wilderness in the state of Texas, to consider what effects building a border wall might have on wildlife dispersals, migratory corridors, and access to the Rio Grande, the only water source in a harsh desert environment.
6. Life Coach
When conditions became unfavorable for a first ascent of Alaska’s Ruth Gorge, Alex Honnold turns the camera on Renan Ozturk for a strangely beautiful discussion about life’s big questions.
7. Lost in Light
Lost in Light is a short film on how light pollution affects the view of the night skies. Shot mostly in California, this piece shows how the night sky view gets progressively better as you move away from the lights.
8. The Curve of Time
Due to climate change, ski seasons will be markedly shorter by 2050. Lower elevations will receive significantly less snowfall. Professional skiers Greg Hill and Chris Rubens peer into the future and have a conversation with their future selves, contemplating the sobering forecast and the impact their thirst for adventure has on the very environment that sustains and fulfills them. With an eye on the clock, they launch themselves into an experiment: can they each remain committed skiers while significantly reducing their carbon footprints?
9. Rupununi: Fight for El Dorado
In the late 15th century, Sir Walter Raleigh set out on an ill-fated quest for El Dorado, the lost city of gold. Today, biologists are uncovering what the indigenous people of Guyana have known all along – that Rupununi is a place of untold riches, not only in minerals and oil, but in unrivaled biodiversity. Thanks to well-orchestrated efforts from indigenous communities and conservation biologists like Dr. Lesley De Souza, the Rupununi has the potential to become Guyana’s largest protected area (3 million acres). See this incredible landscape through the eyes of Macushi elders as they fight to protect the forests, rivers and seasonally flooded wetlands from unchecked development and habitat destruction.
10. My Irnik
A young father teaches his son about the value of shared adventures, exploration and his ancestral Inuit heritage.
11. Chasing Wild: Journey into the Sacred Headwaters
Three friends set off on a 400km bikepacking and packraft expedition – pedaling through vast boreal forest, paddling frigid whitewater, battling monster trout, outrunning a grizzly – through the heart of the sacred headwaters in northwestern British Columbia, birthplace of three critical salmon rivers, and home to the Tahltan people. In the wake of the devastating Mount Polley Mine disaster, the team’s goal is to understand what is at stake as a wave of new mines are developed across this remote corner of the province.