Wild & Scenic Film Festival celebrates fresh, local, wild

IN ONLY EIGHT YEARS, THE WILD & Scenic Environmental Film Festival in Nevada City hasgrown to become the nation’s largest festival of its kind, drawing 5,000 people to watch 125 films. “Wild & Scenic is the next Sundance,” as one filmmaker puts it.

This year, the festival’s theme is “Fresh Local Wild,” focusing on the revolution occurring around local food in our nation.

The weekend event, on Jan. 15-17, will also highlight what the foothills’ own farmers are doing to promote a more local and sustainable food economy.

“It was apparent as we were watching the film submissions that the local, organic revolution was an important message filmmakers wanted to share,” says Kathy Dotson, the festival’s director.

Films such as Food Inc., What’s Organic about Organic?, Big River (a followup to King Corn), and Nourish, starring Cameron Diaz, will highlight the history of food, organic farming, community supported agriculture (CSA) and organic cuisine.

Food Inc. is a documentary that examines the big business of food, often in unflattering detail. It also provides some constructive advice: know where your food comes from (read labels), support family farms, and tell Congress that food safety is important to you.

What’s Organic about Organic features characters who are intimately connected to the organic world: farmers, activists and scientists. It also shows how organic farming can be healthy for our environment, not just our bodies.

Many of the filmmakers will be on hand to discuss their films. “I get to see the other films and interact with the audience and directors,” says Shelley Rogers, director of What’s Organic, who’s coming from New York City.

Dotson and her colleagues previewed all the films that are being shown at this year’s festival. She has been the event’s director since it began. The festival is hosted and organized by the South Yuba River Citizens League, the grassroots environment group that has advocated protecting the Yuba watershed for 26 years.

The group’s first environmental film festival was at a lone venue in Nevada City, with actor Peter Coyote providing opening remarks and attendees such as Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Gary Snyder. Film-goers were moved by what they saw, and the seeds of the festival were born.

Nowadays special events occur at myriad venues throughout Nevada City’s charming downtown. Festival-goers enjoy watching the films but also eating, shopping and walking through the historic district.

This year, for the first time, the event also will be streamed live via the Web—spreading its message worldwide.

“We eat three times a day, and the food we serve our friends and family has an impact well beyond our own stomaches,” as Rogers concludes.