As I stood in line for one of the films at MountainFilm in Telluride a few days ago, my neighbor told me that he had been coming to the event for 16 years. It made sense to me. This was my first trek to MountainFilm, and I had already started to wonder what had taken me so long to get there. My friend and colleague Allison Wolff, who sits on the MountainFilm board, had been urging me to attend for a long time. Now I could see myself also planning to return for the next 16 years — harrowing flight into the mountain town and all.
The yearly festival embodies the mission of MountainFIlm, which is dedicated to educating, inspiring and motivating audiences about issues that matter, cultures worth exploring, environments worth preserving, adventures worth pursuing and conversations worth sustaining
My personal highlight, apart from all the good times with energizing people, was listening to the Spanish filmmaker Enric Sala. A childhood fan of Jacques Cousteau, he became a marine biologist, only to become frustrated with spending his days writing the obituary of the earth’s oceans with increasing levels of detail. So he became a filmmaker to show the world how we can reverse the destruction and become part of the solution. His films have contributed to the creation of seven marine reserves of significant size, which in and of itself is inspiring, but especially knowing that less than one percent of our oceans have national-park-type protection.
Below are some entries from the notebook that I kept at the festival. I hope it gives you a good taste of what goes on during Memorial Day weekend in a picturesque town of the Rockies.
- On climate crisis. Of course we’re all part of the problem, but we can all be part of the solution too.
- Documentary storytelling is not about suspension of belief like in fiction. At its best, it’s about acquisition of belief. I believe something is possible that you don’t yet believe. If I show you, you might believe it. People don’t see your vision for a better world. Show them.
- What is there about water – any water – that isn’t holy?
- I have one word to describe how I propose we navigate these times of rapid change: together. (yes!)
- We are inextricably linked to the poor.
- A Harvard professor: When you chew your food, you are chewing on the photons of the sun. (my daughter is right – we are all made out of stars)
- About the Artificial Leaf (incredibly exciting): I just want to be the McDonald’s of clean energy and hand energy out like hamburgers.
- How can we harness the guarded secret of plant energy?
- Germany has cracked the code on increasing prosperity while decreasing emissions – inspired by Jimmy Carter when he put solar panels on the White House.
- We need to embrace climate change as a moral issue. It is fundamentally a moral problem which requires a moral response (agree – as are most of the largest issues of our time)
- On pulsed grazing (impressive!) – we need to mimic nature.
- (most scary!) There’s one tool for slowing down the meltdown of the Arctic – geoengineering.
- I am trying to find a nice philosophical phrase for this: I am really pissed off about the climate crisis.
- Moral framing for climate solutions need to be concrete and with muscle. As we try to stop coal trains in our town, we will tape pictures of the faces of our children on the tracks so that we get a sense of what we are doing, as we do it. (great opportunity to be more inclusive of artists in documentary storytelling)
- Greening your corporation is not enough. This is going to hurt. It’s going to require sacrifice too, like running for the board of your utility.
- The only energy that is truly environmentally friendly is that which is not used.
- A story helps people connect the dots and to help them feel like they are stakeholders.
- Most filmmakers at MountainFilm don’t watch TV or even have a TV (me included, ironic)
- Storytelling is starting to take a backseat in documentaries. Narrative arcs are sadly lacking. (exactly why we pioneered role of Narrative Guardian)
- Filmmakers upon encountering static on top of Mt. Kenya: We had the goodbye conversation. (Luckily they survived to tell us about it. Why do we wait for crisis to have our goodbye conversations?)
