Saving the planet, one movie at a time

The biggest environmental film festival in North America will make a stop in Bloomington on Thursday following its seventh anniversary.

The Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival will be sponsored locally by the Indiana Forest Alliance  and sponsored nationally by a grant from Patagonia, an outdoor clothing and gear company that focuses on being environmentally friendly, said Rhonda Baird, director of the Indiana Forest Alliance. The company’s mission statement is to “build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis,” according to its Web site.
“They have a strong environmental ethic running throughout the company,” Baird said.

The purpose of the Indiana Forest Alliance is to hold government agencies accountable for the impact of their actions and to establish sustainable political and economic policies. In addition to being a membership drive for the alliance, Baird said the festival hopes to raise awareness about the various issues the films cover, such as the impact of roads on the nature around them and land renewal that converts depleted soil into arable land for farmers.

In addition to the films – which will include the standard Wild and Scenic opening trailer – the Alliance has invited other local organizations to set up tables at the event. Mayor Mark Kruzan, as well as professor Scott Russell Sanders, author of “The Conservationist Manifesto” published in April by IU Press will both speak briefly.

“The book presents an argument about the practical, ethical and ecological reasons for embracing a conservation ethic,” Sanders said. “We need to shift from a culture of consumption and speed and waste to a culture of care-taking.”

His book discusses not only forests, but also preserving a stable climate, clean air and water and redirecting human brain power.

“The priorities in our culture are devoting brain power to militarism and exploiting natural resources, rather than conserving them,” Sanders said.

Companies like Patagonia are taking steps in the right direction, Sanders said, with ad campaigns like “Don’t Buy This Shirt Unless You Need It.”

“I think Patagonia is dedicated to that vision and I applaud them for it,” he said. “Hectic consumerism is dangerous to the environment.”

Susie Sutphin, the festival’s tour manager, said her advocacy group, the South Yuba River Citizens League of California, started the festival in 2003 and it has since grown to a three-day event every January in Nevada City, Calif., including seven venues, art shows, music, workshops, 80 guest speakers and more than 125 films.

“The tour is a much more condensed version of that,” she said. “Pretty much every topic is covered because we work with a wide range of environmental groups.”

The tour includes more than 90 stops around the country. From the 60 films on tour, each local host chooses the films they feel are best suited to their audience. Sutphin said festival-goers can find trailers and film biographies on the film festival’s Web site, http://wseff.org/trailers.

“It just kind of blossomed into this larger thing,” Sutphin said. “We have now an obligation to make sure these films are seen by a larger audience.”