May 26th, 2016

My longtime friend, Aryeh from Durango, Colorado, invited me to join him for Telluride’s 38^th Mountainfilm Festival. He has been many times and thought it was time for me to experience this special event.

Every Memorial Day weekend since 1979, Telluride hosts the Mountainfilm Festival—not to be confused with the Telluride Film Festival which is held over Labor Day weekend.

Mountainfilm bills itself as America’s leading independent documentary film festival, featuring documentaries related to environmental, cultural, political and social justice issues.

Below is the Mountainfilm Festival’s mission statement, as posted on their website:

Mountainfilm is a dynamic organization and festival of films, people, stories, and ideas that celebrates indomitable spirit, educates and inspires audiences, and motivates individuals and communities to advance solutions for a livable world.

In the early days of the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival, the films primarily featured mountain culture and extreme sports, with the audience consisting mostly of avid climbers, mountaineers and other adrenaline junkies. Over the years it has evolved and extended its embrace to include a much wider and increasingly diverse audience, with more of an orientation toward social, cultural, environmental, and political issues, in the hopes of engaging the audience in a way that will inspire activism.

The main streets of this former silver-mining town have not changed much since the 1970s and 80s when I drove to Telluride from the Boulder/Denver area to telemark ski on the steep slopes on the edge of town, within a few minutes walking distance. These adventures served as an antidote to the intense mental activity required during my medical studies.

The only stressful part of this magical film adventure was choosing which films to see out of the many that are offered. Aryeh gave me some tips on how to make the process more manageable.

I first met Aryeh at the Lama Foundation in northern New Mexico, during a weeklong permaculture course in 1995. We have remained friends ever since—in spite of a few rough stretches scattered throughout the years.

Romantic sparks flew around during the first year of knowing each other, but after I took a trip to Alaska with Aryeh and with my son, Barrett—seven years old at the time—the romantic part quickly disappeared, related in part to the tension between Aryeh and Barrett—with Mama Bear in the middle.

The interpersonal fiasco notwithstanding, I will remember that Alaska trip as one of the most memorable wilderness trips that I’ve ever taken. The month-long adventure began in Glacier Bay where we rented kayaks and paddled in the pristine waters. Breaching humpback whales cruised by our kayaks. One whale surfaced a foot from my kayak with his head at arm’s length. Barely breathing, I peered right into what felt like the eye of God. Later, a boat dropped us and our kayaks off in a remote part of the bay where we spent several days camping. Hair-raising tracks of grizzlies could be seen not far from our tents. At one of our remote campsites, I had a close encounter with a black bear who wanted our food. Our trip included a two-week private raft trip hosted by a friend from Outward Bound whose company, Arctic Treks, runs trips down the Canning River through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We had close up views of caribou, musk oxen, wolves, and bears.

With a dose of tincture of time, the tension between Aryeh and me healed and we were able to establish a solid and enduring friendship. I readily agreed when he invited me to join him on his yearly trip to the Mountainfilm Festival.

We rented an inexpensive room with kitchen facilities in this modest little cottage, within a few minutes walking distance to all the film venues.

Outside the drafty cottage where Aryeh and I are staying, I look up and see the snow-covered mountains towering on all sides of the narrow valley where the picturesque town of Telluride is nestled next to the San Miguel River, right in the heart of the San Juan Range of the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Colorado.  The zig-zag lines up the side of the mountain are stretches of the perilous road that connects Telluride with Silverton, open only in the summer.

The air is crisp at 39 degrees today. There is a sprinkle of snow on the ground.

My heart sings to be back in the high country.

May 27th-30th

Today is clear and sunny, the temperature in the mid 50s. There’s film fever in the air.

About one hundred films ranging in length from 2 minutes to 2 hours are being shown in the various venues. The venues include the opera house, the library, the high school, “base camp” with an outdoor theater in the park, the town movie theater, the Mason’s Hall, and “high camp” which is accessed by riding the gondola up the side of the mountain.

Even with Aryeh’s help, I found it challenging to choose what films to watch from such a large selection. On top of that, some sophisticated logistics were needed to find the right combination of feature length films mixed with short films at each of the seven venues. All the films sounded interesting to me. Fortunately, there was an app for our cell phones which helped us with the logistics.

The long lines to get in to see the films seemed daunting to me at first. But then Aryeh helped me to see that they served as an important part of the festival fun. People came from across the country and abroad. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood—open, friendly and full of good will. I went from dreading the long lines to looking forward to the forty-five minute wait time. In fact, the time spent in line turned out to be one of the highlights of the film experience. Not only did I learn about which films were most highly recommended, I also met some fascinating people from many parts of the world.

Aryeh pointed out a person in line with a Colorado Outward Bound insignia on his jacket. It turned out to be an old friend, Peter O’Neill, whom I hadn’t seen in forty years, since my days working as a Colorado Outward Bound instructor. For three summers, after returning from the Peace Corps, I led groups of nine students, ranging in age from 16 to 60, into the Rocky Mountains for 21 days at a time, June through August, until I entered medical school at the end of the summer of 1979.

Peter O’Neill had become the director of the entire Colorado OB program. We did some sweet reminiscing about the instructors we worked with, including the Udall boys, Mark and Randy, cousins of Tom Udall, our New Mexico state senator. What a pleasant surprise to see Peter and hear about my old friends!!

While in line I learned about a 20-minute film called “Canyon Song” that takes place in Canyon de Chelly, a place of great importance in my heart, having lived at the mouth of Canyon de Chelly when I was a school teacher. The film is about a young girl from the Draper family who learns from her elders the traditional Navajo songs and culture. I used to know the Draper family, especially the young girl’s grandfather who must have passed away many years ago. They lived in the bottom of the canyon. The film was so popular, I wasn’t able to get in to see it while at the festival so I saw it later on my computer.

“How to Let Go of the World and Love all the Things Climate Can’t Change,” by Josh Fox. This documentary begins by delving into some of the global horrors of climate change and takes a look at the outnumbered activists trying to make a difference with fierce determination. The film is actually upbeat, with the message that, even though the seas will continue to rise, there is some deep essence of the human spirit that can serve as a buoy in these challenging times. By joining together in community to find ways of surviving—and dancing and making music in spite of it all—whether on remote islands, in jungles, or in big cities—our spirit will help us live through these times. The filmmaker so inspired the audience that young and old got up out of their seats and spontaneously danced and played music in the aisles and on stage as the film was showing the credits toward the end.

The film festival included intimate, small group gatherings to discuss various topics raised in the films. Above on the left is James Balog, know for his film “Chasing Ice,” both heartbreaking and exquisitely beautiful with his sequential photographs of the glaciers melting. Jim narrated and starred in the film “Message in a Bottle“—about chasing air this time—which documented the rise in carbon dioxide by capturing sequential air samples.

Jim and I both taught for Outward Bound in the Colorado Rockies. He and his former wife, Karen, and I became very good friends. They invited me over to their house for dinner many times while I was engaged with my medical studies. I almost felt like they had adopted me. We spent many an evening listening to Jim talk about his photography adventures. When I started my residency program in 1983, I wasn’t able to come up for air to have any kind of social life. Working over 100 hours each week made it difficult to maintain friendships. Jim and I lost touch with each other, especially after I moved to New Mexico over 30 years ago. Jim did not know I was at the film festival. I decided I would surprise him by showing up to the small group discussion early. As I walked down the street, I spotted him standing next to his car with his focus on the screen of his laptop computer. A few feet from him, I called out “Hi Jim.” He looked up and within one second, he answered, “Hello, Erica Elliott.” Wow! What a memory that guy has. We had a heartfelt reunion lasting just a few short minutes before he was swept away with his next appearance.

The man sitting next to James Balog is David Foreman, well-known activist and one of the founders of Earth First!, a radical environmental advocacy group formed in 1979 in the Southwestern United States. Josh Fox is third from the left, environmental activist and filmmaker, mostly known for his films about fracking. The woman is the moderator.

Well, I managed to see about 30 wonderful films in all, ten of which were feature-length films. I’m hoping I can find on the internet some of the ones I missed. I was very impressed with the films I saw, made mostly by young filmmakers dedicated to making a difference in the world through their art.

The trip home flew by quickly with our heads full of images from the film festival and our eyes full of spectacular mountain scenery.