Film Festival Returns to Schiff For Fifth Time

Schiff Natural Lands Trust will host its fifth Wild and Scenic Film Festival at Schiff Nature Preserve, 339 Pleasant Valley Road, on Friday, May 31 and Saturday June 1 at 6:30 p.m.  New this year: different films will be featured each night.

Reaching Schiff’s “theatre-in-the-woods” is easy. Movie-goers may opt to park at the Nature Center and take a guided 1.2 mile hike on a well-marked trail to the lodge, or take a hay wagon. Guests with mobility concerns may contact the Nature Center to make other arrangements. Light refreshments will be available for purchase, and door prizes will be awarded at intermission.

This year’s festival is sponsored locally by The Willow School of Gladstone. The films range in length from 5 to 25 minutes, and explore such diverse topics as a wildlife refuge restoration project to a school cafeteria menu makeover.

“These films discuss topics that affect us locally,” said Marissa Hartzler, Schiff’s Executive Director. “And there is something for everyone—breathtaking scenery, inspirational stories, and hair-raising adventure.”  

Local non-profit organizations have been invited to set up tables and share information about their missions.

 “Schiff and The Willow School share a vision of environmental education and ecological stewardship,” said Hartzler, “and we are looking forward to expanding our partnership with them.” 

In April, Willow’s fifth grade students helped prepare trails around the Schiff preserve for spring and summer hikers.

“The Willow School engages our students in acts of service, connecting with local community environmental organizations and demonstrating our commitment to ecology,” said Kate Burke Walsh, Willow’s Head of School. “Schiff's mission to acquire and preserve open space and serve as a model of environmental and educational stewardship supports our natural partnership."

Wild and Scenic On Tour makes the films available to nonprofit organizations for fundraising and to build environmental awareness. All proceeds from the event will support Schiff, a nonprofit organization dedicated to acquiring and preserving open space, serving as a model of environmental education and stewardship, and improving the ecological value of our community’s natural areas. Schiff’s Nature Center and 14 miles of trails are open to the public for environmental education, research and passive recreational activities.

The Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival was started by the watershed advocacy group, the South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL),a watershed advocacy group out of Nevada City, California, in 2003. The three-day event features over 125 award-winning films, a variety of guest speakers, celebrities and activists making it the largest environmental festival in North America. More than 90 communities host SYRCL’s festival each year and national partners include Clif Bar, Mother Jones, Patagonia and Sierra Nevada Brewing.

Ticket Prices: $15 per person, per night/$20 for a two-night ticket. Additional discounts for groups of four. This event is suitable for ages 8 and up. Tickets and details can be found at online or call the Nature Center at 973-543-6004.

Movie Line Up and Descriptions
FRIDAY, May 31

Brower Youth Awards: Asa Needle 
Lead pollution is a serious problem in many parks and public spaces in Worcester’s inner-city neighborhoods. Motivated by this knowledge, in 2009 Needle joined the Toxic Soil Busters, a youth-run cooperative that offers residents soil testing, remediation, and lead-free landscaping services.

Murder Mouth
Madeleine loves her Greek family’s traditional lamb souvlaki but her friends claim that meat is murder. Well, Madeleine’s never killed anything bigger than a spider, so she decides to reconnect the animal and the meal or never eat meat again. After talking to the people who slaughter animals for their livelihood she is encouraged to do it herself, but even if she can kill an animal, will she still want to eat it afterwards?

Sanctuary
Taos, New Mexico is bordered by a backyard of wildlife and wild land. Both take a beating as outdoor users love the Carson National Forest to death. Some of those users recognized the damage they caused and decided to instigate a movement for resource recovery. Illegal trails close. Sanctuaries open. Habitat bounces back. Wildlife comes back. See a refuge restored in just a few short years.

Sand Rider
Colorado native Marc Pastore grew up snowboarding the snow covered peaks of the San Juan Mountains but in the warm months he earns his turns climbing up the North America’s largest sand dunes in The Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve. With his hand-made, sand-specific board in hand, Marc climbs 2,000 vertical feet per run to experience other worldly views and a unique riding experience in the middle one of the US’s natural wonders. Spanning over 100,000 acres and 6,000 feet of elevation gain up to 13,600 feet, Elk, Bison and reptiles roam the area at the base of the 14,000 foot Sangre De Cristo Range.

The Way Home
Although our national parks belong to all Americans, it’s a sad fact that very few people of color ever set foot in some of our country’s most beautiful places. Take a journey to Yosemite National Park with the Amazing Grace 50+ Club, a Los Angeles based senior church group whose members are looking to reverse that trend.

Cafeteria Man: Memphis Makeover
This is the continuing story of Chef Tony Geraci’s journey to reform school lunch programs nationwide. After the release of the film Cafeteria Man, which chronicled the extraordinary school lunch reform effort that Tony lead in Baltimore, the city of Memphis Tennessee approached him with a deal he couldn’t refuse. That was to work with a community where he would receive the support and the funding to do show what was possible to change the lunch and as it turns out breakfast and dinner programs. Now Tony serves 200,000 meals a day in Memphis, and what a menu it is!

Generation Green
Generation Green follows the journey of Patrick Hearps, a young chemical engineer working at an oil refinery, as he becomes increasingly concerned about his companies contribution towards adverse climate change. Torn between his career and a higher obligation of environmental stewardship, his personal struggle reflects the great dilemma of our generation. Patrick’s courageous choices and eventual path forward highlight the actions needed to shape the world of tomorrow.

Huck
Waterfall kayaking has emerged as a dominant subset of whitewater paddling—thrilling audiences and pushing athletes to constantly tempt higher falls. It is constantly glorified and frequently misunderstood by all but the small group of kayakers who make waterfalls their life. Evan Garcia explores what it means to kayak off of big waterfalls.

How the Kids Saved the Parks
You know those movies where the kids get together and do something awesome? When they unite to overcome insurmountable odds? Maybe win the championship from the favored bad guys. Maybe embark on an epic quest to stop the grown ups from doing something stupid. This is one of those movies, except this one really happened. This is the story of a group of great kids that worked day and night to save the California State Parks that they love – this is ‘How The Kids Saved The Parks’.

SATURDAY, June 1

Young Voices for the Planet: Team Marine
High school students are concerned about the effects of plastic bags on life in the ocean and on CO2 emissions. They dress up as plastic bag monsters and act to successfully ban plastic bags in their city of Santa Monica.

A Changing Delta (Subtitled) 
Left for dead after decades of neglect, the terminus of the Colorado River in Northern Mexico was once a vibrant wetland ecosystem the size of Rhode Island. “A Changing Delta” chronicles the stories, issues, and people of the Colorado River Delta in Mexico.

Last Light
There is an undeniable magic in alpenglow– the final seconds of a day’s light that give mountains impossible texture and life before falling into shadow. In the endless spring hours of Haines, Alaska, light is as bountiful as snow. But to capture the best of both, that singularly lit moment that turns powder into frozen red fire, you must live all day in the midst of them; ready to drop in long after the helicopters have gone home and your line is made magic in the last of the light.

Quest for Energy (Subtitled) 
Four million off-grid Indians are ready to save their precious World Heritage site with sustainable ways of living. They are already living virtually carbon-free in the world’s most unique and largest wetland. Two of their islands have vanished because of rising sea levels due to the effects of climate change. Low-cost coal or kerosene produces a carbon-footprint; fossil fuels are not a viable option. Instead, solar panels,
hybrid power plants, and cow manure are local solutions. With 1.3 billion people still looking to get electricity in the world, these sustainable options may just save our planet.

Scars of Freedom
This is the story of the repercussions of human negligence juxtaposed with the incredible power of human compassion. An entangled humpback whale, left for dead; a fishing net, her anvil. Estimated at 250 kilos this net had cut halfway through the left side of her tail. Between two dives, our film crew heard a radio call announcing some fishermen had spotted an entangled whale. Untrained for such missions, we nonetheless set off to her rescue and captured incredible footage. Beautiful images of humpbacks swimming through the protected waters off Hawaii offer a contrast to the story, concluding with a powerful statement; ‘Change begins with the heart.’

Yosemite Nature Notes: Sky Islands
Throughout California’s Sierra Nevada, flat plateaus are found at high elevations of twelve and fourteen thousand feet. These isolated “sky islands” are home to rock gardens filled with amazing wildflowers found nowhere else in the world. Botanists in Yosemite National Park are working to document these unique plant communities for the first time before a changing climate drives them to extinction.

The Last Ice Merchant (Subtitled) 
For over 50 years Baltazar Ushca has harvested the glacial ice of Ecuador’s Mount Chimborazo. His brothers, both raised as ice merchants, have long since retired from the mountain. This is a story of cultural change and how three brothers have adapted to it.

Georgena Terry
This short documentary is about Georgena Terry, founder of Terry Bicycles. Terry revolutionized the women’s biking industry by creating a frame specific to a woman’s body. This is the story of how she got her start and the challenges within the women’s biking movement.

Haiti: Frame of Mind (Subtitled) 
20 kids, 10 days, 4,000 photographs. This short follows a Frame of Mind photographic expedition of 20 Haitian youth, ages 12-19, as they travel from their city of Jacmel, Haiti to Parc la Visite for the first time to see and document the environmental risks facing their country.