2017 FILM SCHEDULE
Issues That Matter | Cultures Worth Exploring | Environments Worth Preserving | Adventures Worth Pursuing | Conversations Worth Having
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17th
AN INTRODUCTION TO MOUNTAINFILM BY MAX STRANG
7:00 PM start time / Duration 10 Minutes
Architect and Founding Principal of [STRANG] Design, Max will open the Film Festival with a mission statement of MountainFilm, why he has brought MountainFilm to Miami and give thanks to our sponsors for their financial, business and outreach support.
ADAPTATION BANGLADESH: SEA LEVEL RISE
2017 USA - Bangladesh / Duration: 12 Minutes
Directed by: Justin DeShields
The “new normal” of global climate change is, generally, a harrowing reality to contemplate. Cultural anthropologist (and Moving Mountains Symposium speaker) Alizé Carrére helps us see, however, that it does not need to be a reality devoid of hope. In Bangladesh — the most densely populated country in the world and one that will bear a disproportionate share of the impact of global climate change — Carrere shows us the kind of resilience, flexibility and innovation that will be requisite for the survival of our species.
SCIENCE IN AMERICA - NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON
2017 USA / Duration: 5 Minutes
Directed by: Sarah Klein, Tom Mason
How did America rise from a backwoods country to be one of the greatest nations the world has ever known? That’s the question posited by Neil deGrasse Tyson, America’s best-known contemporary scientist, at the beginning of this short film. The answer, unequivocally, is science. Tyson elaborates with a robust, heartfelt and moving defense of a field that’s been under attack.
FEATURE
OUR FEATURE FILM: CHASING CORAL
2016 USA / Duration: 94 Minutes
Directed by: Jeff Orlowski
Otherworldly habitats that are home to a psychedelic array of colors, creatures and life, coral reefs are crucial foundations of ocean ecosystems. But hidden from sight, these miraculous places are largely out of mind for most humans. And they are also under dire threat as warming ocean temperatures trigger unprecedented rates of bleaching and dying. In Chasing Coral, director Jeff Orlowski and a team of scientists, photographers and divers set out to document this underwater crisis and share it with a global audience. It’s no easy task, and the team faces technical challenges, the whims of nature and the ticking clock as it races to record bleaching events as they happen. Chasing Coral is a film that pairs beauty and urgency with a glimpse of the tragedies that will continue if humans don’t address climate change.
Q & A
Q&A Session with the Coral Restoration Foundation
Daniel Burdeno, Reef Restoration Program Associate
Kayla Ripple, Science Program Manager
Duration: 15 Minutes
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18th
AN INTRODUCTION TO MOUNTAINFILM BY MAX STRANG
7:00 PM start time / Duration 10 Minutes
Architect and Founding Principal of [STRANG] Design, Max will open the Film Festival with a mission statement of MountainFilm, why he has brought MountainFilm to Miami and give thanks to our sponsors for their financial, business and outreach support.
2016 USA / Duration: 9 Minutes
Directed by: Renan Ozturk
Like a raven on an updraft, Leighan Falley soars above the glaciers and peaks of the Alaska Range with her daughter Skye strapped into the backseat of her de Havilland Beaver. Born of a desire to see more of the dramatic landscape and a need to supplement her career as a mountain guide, Falley now works as a commercial pilot in Talkeetna, Alaska. She comes from a long line of aviators and finds inspiration working with other women in the high alpine. Denali’s Raven is a glimpse into the life of an Alaskan pilot, skier, alpinist and mother.
2016 Finland / Duration: 4 Minutes
Directed by: Ian Derry
Finnish free diver Johanna Norblad is the world record holder in the little-known sport of free diving under ice. British director Ian Derry captures one of Norblad’s dives in this chilling visual poem that’ll leave you wishing you were wearing an extra layer.
2017 USA / Duration: 4 Minutes
Directed by: Krystle Wright
Friday night at the local watering hole and … where the ladies at? Answer: BASE jumping from high desert cliffs, performing tricks on slacklines, climbing granite routes, shredding singletrack, skiing backcountry lines and generally leaving you fellas behind. This rowdy ode to female athletes by Krystle Wright leaves no doubt about the state of women in today’s outdoor world: badass.
2016 Scotland / Duration: 7 Minutes
Understanding that his life was threaded with risk, climber and BASE jumper Matt Blank embarked on a project: writing letters to his closest friends and family to let them know how much they meant to him. That way, he figured, if his life were cut short he’d leave something behind to express his affection. What he didn’t expect was that one of the recipients — his best friend and longtime climbing partner Ian Flanders — would go first. When We Were Knights, an elegiac film by Anson Fogel, explores friendship, partnership, adventure and the many iterations of love that give meaning to our lives.
ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND BEATING HEARTS
2016 USA / Duration: 15 Minutes
Directed by: Peter Byck
Will Harris is not a typical back-to-the-earth organic farming advocate: He’s a hard-bitten, fourth-generation, good ol’ boy, commodity cowboy who raised cattle in strictest post WWII industrial fashion. Addicted to ammonium nitrate fertilizer, hormones and antibiotics, Harris squeezed every penny out of every cow pound. Until he didn’t. In 1995, Harris began to change how he farmed. He began to pay more attention to the microbes in his soil than to his chemically sponsored beef yields. In the process, he went from liking what he was doing “every year a little bit less” to feeling good about everything his transformed farm had to show him — including things he never expected to see.
ZAIN'S SUMMER: FROM REFUGEE TO AMERICAN BOY
2016 USA / Duration: 13 Minutes
Directed by: Joshua Seftel
Zain’s Summer depicts the sunny side of the refugee experience. Zain and his siblings and mother fled Pakistan 11 months before the period the film covers, a six-week summer language program to prepare young, new immigrants for the start of school. The possibility of a new life in America, relatively free from fear of violence and persecution, represents the very best of America in director Joshua Seftel’s telling. Zain’s openness to what the U.S. offers is old-fashioned and inspiring.
2017 USA / Duration: 2 Minutes
Directed by: Megan Lorenz
Megan Lorenz’s award-winning internet sensation Owl Dance-Off.
2016 USA / Duration: 15 Minutes
Directed by: Amanda Zackem
“There’s a kind of emotional incapacity to understand collapse, even when it’s facing you,” says journalist, author and activist Chris Hedges. Hedges compares the disorder of Trump’s America to what he observed as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times in the former East Germany and in Bosnia under Milosevic. Totalitarianism is nothing less than mass psychosis, and dissent is the only antidote, both as a basis of hope for society and as the only way for the individual to stay sane.
2016 USA / Duration: 13 Minutes
Directed by: David Darg
Calvin Gentry drives his car around his Memphis, Tennessee, neighborhood, pointing out the park where fights break out, the corner store where he has witnessed shootings and telling stories of friends and relatives who are addicted to crack or in jail. His would be a dead-end life of crime, too, he admits candidly, if it were not for rugby. With little more than a ball and a patch of grass, the sport provides brotherhood, unity and a shot at a college scholarship for a group of inner city boys. When these rugby players work hard, there’s no stopping them. The Rugby Boys of Memphis is the inspiring success story of a team of resilient athletes.
2016 USA / Duration: 3 Minutes
Directed by: Sriram Murali
This film is about how light pollution changes what you see. —Henry, age 13
THE SEED VAULT: PRESERVING CROP DIVERSITY, FOREVER.
2017 USA / Duration: 17 Minutes
Directed by: Daniel Sherer
Amid a snow-covered Nordic landscape, a portal on the side of a frosty mountain leads to a long, dark tunnel and then a frozen door. Behind that door: the history of agriculture — of cultivation, selection and environmental symbioses — as told by more than 880,000 seeds. This is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the largest collection of seeds in the world and a safeguard against loss of diversity, insurance that human agriculture can adapt and continue to feed the world. This film follows world-renowned scientist Cary Fowler as he delves into the state of agriculture, co-evolution, extinction and the future of our food supply.
2017 USA / Duration: 2 Minutes
Most people would consider sending a 70-foot waterfall pretty epic. Not Rafa Ortiz, who decides to ditch the kayak for a pool toy.