Wild & Scenic Film Festival: Where activism gets inspired

“THE WILD REQUIRES that we learn the terrain, nod to all the plants and animals and birds, ford the streams and cross the ridges, and tell a good story when we get back home.”

So writes legendary Beat poet Gary Snyder in his influential collection The Practice of the Wild. The essays are the basis for a documentary with the same name — one of the 100 films that will be shown at this year’s Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City.

Started as a project of the South Yuba River Citizens League (or SYRCL), the festival has become the largest environmental film festival in the country, drawing more than 3,500 people. The film has attracted actors including Peter Coyote, Daryl Hannah and Patrick Stewart.

The 9th annual Wild & Scenic Film Festival takes place Fri.-Sun., Jan. 14-16, in Nevada City. This year’s tag line, “let’s use film to inspire activism.”

“We have films on a broad range of critical environmental issues—climate change, river restoration, organic farming and others,” says new Film Festival Director Leslie Jacobson. “We also have a lot of adventure films this year, featuring mountain climbing, snowboarding and extreme sports.”

The movies are submitted from all over the world. Gum for MyBoat is a story of hope, focusing on the Bangladesh Surf Club. Many of the children are street kids, come from poor families or don’t even know how to swim. But their love for surfing brings them together.

SoLa (or Southern Louisiana) is a film about the relationship between man and water, focusing on some of the insidious pollution in the Cajun Country waterways. “We never could have predicted our rebiggest ecological disaster—the BP oil spill polluting the Gulf of Mexico,” says the filmmaker.

Growing fresh, local food also is featured, including a documentary about the Living Lands Agrarian
Network in Nevada County, a non-profit that offers training and mentorship to the next generation of farmers. “We practice and promote localized ecological farming for the profound effect it has on ourselves, our neighbors and the plant,” the group says.

The festival occurs at about eight venues throughout Nevada City’s charming downtown, including the historic Nevada Theatre where Mark Twain once performed. Festival-goers enjoy watching the films but also eating, shopping and walking through the historic district.

A hallmark of the event is its free workshops and question-and-answer session with filmmakers and actors. Topics have included “the future of food,” “get your film out to the world,” and “making the global climate movement visible.” More of them will be featured at the upcoming festival, according to Jacobson.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Snyder, one of the festival’s original attendees, is expected to appear this year to discuss his documentary, produced by poet Jim Harrison and Will Hearst, the grandson of William Randolph Hearst and owner of San Simeon Films studio.

Filmmaker and environmentalist Randy Hayes also is expected. Hayes is founder of the Rainforest Action Network. “People are opening their eyes to the damage we’ve done to the planet,” he says. “We have to get our foot off the throat of the planet’s life support systems. And that’s going to take a major societal shift in thinking.”