This past weekend, some of the 350.org team ventured to the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City, California, which is billed as the largest environmental film festival in the U.S. The featured films ranged from kayak trips on China’s last wild rivers to Navajo Nation struggles against coal expansion. A global perspective predomiated the festival, while still managing to connect to local issues, such as the work of the South Yuba River Citizens League.
We made the journey with our friends at Earth Island Institute, whose films about Brower Youth Award winners were presented in the festival. This gave us an opportunity to present to the audience about the 350 movement. We also spent time with our friends at Free Range Studios, who won the John de Graaf award for their groundbreaking work. We were pleased to see that they featured the 350 animation in a selection of films!
Some of the most impressive films we saw documented efforts to preserve wild places on the planet. In “The Last Descent,” kayakers travel to the Brammaputra river in India and work with local river guides. In “Linguists,” we learned about a pair of linguistic scholars who travel to far off places in Bolivia, Siberia, and even Arizona, to document disappearing languages and cultures.