Jack Central (original) February 25, 2010 at 10:52 am
On the night of Feb. 19, booths sporting posters and displays of animals were set up around the stage at the Orpheum Theater. Wildlife lovers from all over Flagstaff were in attendance for a screening of the 8th annual Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival (WSEFF), an event dedicated to the conservation and preservation of Mother Nature.
The WSEFF is organized by the South Yuba River Citizen’s League, an environmental organization devoted to the protection of the Yuba River watershed. The Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project (GCWRP) is the group responsible for bringing the WSEFF to Flagstaff.
The WSEFF is the largest environmental film festival in the United States, and its mission is to inspire people and unite communities to heal the Earth.
“It’s a good public outreach effort to raise awareness about protecting our natural environment,” said Emily Nelson, the education and outreach coordinator for the GCWRP.
The festival consists of nine films, which range from a few minutes to nearly an hour. Each movie displays an environmental conflict, such as deforestation, mining or modern developments that threaten an ecosystem. These films seek to enlighten viewers about the wildlife within these environments with calls to protect them.
“It’s basically to showcase the environment and give people a really good cause to rally around,” said Emily Omana, a conservation biologist from the Grand Canyon Woodlands Council.
The festival opened with the emcee informing the large audience that the sole purpose of these films is to realize our role as stewards for the planet Earth.
The opening video was a short film called Papiroflexia, a cartoon animated with some touches of origami. The film depicts a nameless man folding paper into a mouse, which his origami cat promptly plays with. He then notices all the noise and ugliness of the city and freeway outside his house, so he ventures out and begins turning the gray aspects of civilization into life. He stops a car and folds it into a gazelle, and he turns a plane into a bird.
Eventually, the whole dull and dreary city is turned upside down to reveal a beautiful forest. The man, looking down from a mountain peak, folds himself into a bear, completing the transformation to nature.
The next film, titled Flathead Wild, follows the journey of several intrepid nature photographers into the Flathead Valley. Located in the southeast corner of British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains, the Flathead is considered one of the most biologically important places on Earth, but it is currently being threatened by plans for drilling and mining. The photographers sought to capture the rare species and beautiful scenery in the Flathead on film to convince people the place must be preserved.
The rest of the pictures deal with other various environmental concerns, all calling for action to prohibit man from staking his claim on it.
“These films really opened up my eyes to the beauty of nature, and how we must preserve it at all costs,” said Michaela Finch, a Flagstaff citizen. “We cannot take nature for granted.”
