A few years ago, Ana Joanes felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the environmental problems facing the world. How could one person reverse global warming on their own?
‘I felt that I had been shying away from the problem because it was so big and so overwhelming,’ she said in a phone interview. ‘I felt my individual actions could not make a difference, could not mean anything.’
In an effort to prove herself wrong, Joanes left Brooklyn, N.Y., and traveled around the United States to find out what people were doing on a grassroots level to affect change.
‘We live like the world is separate from us, but we are part of the world,’ Joanes said. ‘How do we regain that sense that we are the creators of our world?’
A video camera proved to be the means for Joanes to put herself in the midst of people who were doing their best to consciously reshape their communities and their world. The more she filmed, the more she found that the production of food was a ‘microcosm’ of many environmental issues, and that the innovations she found in this area inspired hope for change on many levels. This journey resulted in the documentary ‘Fresh,’ which will be showing at the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival in Nevada City on the weekend of January 15 through 17.
The largest film festival of its kind in the United States, WSEFF will feature a 2010 program with a focus on films concerned with the cultivation, procurement and consumption of food and water. The theme ‘Fresh, Wild & Local’ refers to both physical nourishment and sources for solutions to the greater environmental problems of today. The festival will show 135 films in seven venues, feature a diverse lineup of speakers, free workshops and two activism centers dedicated to helping the audience put the lessons from the silver screen to work in their own lives.
‘[WSEFF is] solution-based, action-based films to inspire activism,’ said Susie Sutphin, tour manager for the festival. ‘The energy level and professionalism and caliber of the event is always on the rise.’
The festival is organized and hosted by the South Yuba River Citizens League, a grassroots environmental organization that has spent the past 26 years working to protect the Yuba River watershed from source to sea. In 1999, SYRCL’s efforts led Governor Gray Davis to add 39 miles of the Yuba to California’s Wild and Scenic River System, a milestone that inspired the festival’s name.
This history of community activism draws filmmakers to the festival.
‘[The film’s] very purpose is to get people excited and connected in their commitment,’ Joanes said. ‘The power lies in seeing the movie together as a community and then connecting to make solutions. [Wild & Scenic] is the perfect platform, bringing in this movie to make change and get the community energized.’
The activist centers, a new development for this year’s festival, will each have a central focus and take place on Saturday. One will look at broader issues in environmental activism, with workshops on making the climate crisis visible, sustainable business, the relationship between culture and adventure, and the future of oceans. The other center will be entirely dedicated to food, with speakers addressing all levels of the issue from soil, permaculture and watershed issues to how to support local farms and why organic food play a role in people’s lives.
Ari Derfel will host a workshop called ‘Why Organic?’ on Saturday. Derfel is an advocate for implementing change on a personal level and has incorporated organic cuisine and sustainable practices into every aspect of his professional and personal life. He spent 2007 collecting and living with every piece of trash and recyclable material he produced in an effort to understand his own effect on the environment and will open his organic restaurant, Gather, in Berkeley, Calif., on Dec. 18.
‘When we’re inspired or moved by something, it’s not, how do we get people into the choir, it’s … how do we get inspired and make changes in our own lives?’ Derfel said. ‘That’s why we’re not making changes in real life. Everyone externalizes the situation.’
Special Celebrity Guest
Fans of the silver screen will know Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard from the ‘Star Trek’ franchise, or perhaps as Professor Charles Xavier in the ‘X-Men’ movies. Seth Warren has a somewhat lower profile, but residents of Missoula, Mont., may recognize him as someone they’ve seen out on the river recently practicing the sport of stand-up paddling.
What do the movie star and the whitewater paddler have in common? Stewart will provide the narration for Warren’s second environmental/adventure film, ‘Nature Propelled,’ and both will attend January’s WSEFF, where the movie will premiere.
Warren, who is also a SYRCL member, won the WSEFF People’s Choice Award in 2008 for the first film he ever made, ‘Oil + Water.’ While his 2010 entry continues his discovery of how to procure and use alternative energy, he is also enthusiastic about the central theme of the festival.
‘The bottom line is what you eat pretty much makes you who you are,’ Warren said in a phone interview from Missoula. ‘We really need good people in this world, and I think good food contributes to that.’
The community atmosphere of WSEFF and the action it inspires is exactly the reason Warren will be returning this year.
‘I’ve had so many people email in, and made so many connections from [Wild & Scenic],’ Warren said. ‘And I love Nevada City, it’s such a classy place to have a premiere. … It’s a great place to bring in important people associated with the film, somewhere I’m happy to take them.’
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