Mammoth Lakes Film Festival founder Shira Dubrovner has created a new film festival with Eastern Sierra Arts Alliance (ESAA) for which she is the executive director.
Just in time for Earth Day weekend, in conjunction with Eastern Sierra Earth Week, she’s debuting the Eastern Sierra Mountain Film Festival April 23-25.
The virtual festival is viewable via free tickets at the EasternSierraArts.org website. Films are available for an extended viewing window once selected to watch, making them as eminently easy to view as they are timely and compelling projects.
Here’s a quick rundown of the environmentally prescient and visually astonishing films screening
Opening Night – Friday April 23, 7pm
KIFARU
Director – David Hambridge (Run Time 80 mins)
Kifaru follows the lives of two young Kenyan recruits that join Ol Pejeta Conservancy’s rhino caretaker unit – a small group of rangers that care for and protect Sudan, the last male northern white rhino or kifaru in Swahili.
The feature is accompanied by a 12 minutes short film following a group of local Maasai rangers educating their community about the importance of elephants, James Martin’s Being with Elephants.
Shorts Block – Saturday April 24, 7pm
THE PRODIGY
Director – Lewis Rapkin (Run Time 3 mins)
Tyler “The Prodigy” Lau set out to be the first person of color to complete what’s known in hiking as the Calendar-Year Triple Crown, the 8000 mile journey of the Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail and Appalachian Trail all within a year.
ADA BLACKJACK RISING
Director – Brice Habeger – (Run Time 6 mins)
In the pre-dawn twilight of an Alaskan shore, a young Native woman reflects on the story of Ada Blackjack, the sole survivor of a disastrous 1921 Arctic expedition, and the loneliness she must have felt waiting for a rescue through the months-long polar night.
ALPHA MARE
Director – Victor Tadashi Suarez & Mimi Wilcox – (Run Time 10 mins)
A dreamlike meditation on mental health and the search for self-love, Alpha Mare is the story of Karin Dilou,a sage elderly woman who lives a solitary life above the Nicasio Reservoir in California with a herd of Danish Warmbloods, told from the horses’ perspective
MOTHERLAND
Director – Emily Mkrtichian & Jesse Soursourian – (Run Tim 19 mins)
The documentary short focuses on the the women who shake tradition to rid their country of landmines leftover from a devastating ethnic war.
LOVE IS THE WAY
Director – Jeremy Là Zelle – (Run Time 45 mins)
Love is the Way brings together the voices speaking in defense of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, highlighting the generations of stewardship by Gwich’in and Iñupiaq people inspired in part by footage of the late photographer Michio Hoshino.
Closing Night – Sunday April 25, 7pm
ANCHOR POINT
Director – Holly Tuckett – (Run Time 90 mins)
Women have been a force in wildland firefighting since 1942. Still, they remain outnumbered 10-to-1 on the fire lines and do double-duty battling both the infernos that scorch public lands and the smoldering embers of discrimination, misogyny and sexual harassment. Told in cinema verité, ANCHOR POINT chronicles the 2019 fire season through the eyes of two women, generations apart, as they push to change the culture of wildland fire. Much of the film was shot in and around the Eastern Sierra.
Watch the Eastern Sierra Mountain Film Festival Friday, April 23 through Sunday, April 25 at 7 PM by reserving tickets on the Eastern Sierra Arts website, www.EasternSierraArts.org
- Genie Davis, images and film information provided by Easter Sierra Mountain Film Festival