SWEP Film Festival To Celebrate Water & Education

Sierra Watershed Education Partnerships (SWEP) will hold their inaugural film festival, 'Water: The Essential', October 23-25 at Tahoe Art Haus & Cinema and Moe's Original Barbecue in Tahoe City. The weekend will feature multiple films about water issues, adventures on water and other environmental issues.

From News Release...

SWEP Announces Annual Film Festival Water. The Essential!

TAHOE CITY, CA.  Sierra Watershed Education Partnerships (SWEP) is proud to announce their first annual Film Festival slated to take place October 23 - 25, 2015 at Tahoe Art Haus & Cinema and Moe’s Original BBQ in Tahoe City. The theme for this year’s festival is WATER. THE ESSENTIAL! Tickets and passes can be purchased at the theater or online at  www.TahoeArtHausCinema.com

Join us for a weekend of compelling and inspirational award-winning films about water issues facing us today, exciting adventure films on water as well as many other films related to environmental issues. Speakers and filmmakers will introduce some of the films. To learn more about the films being presented, screening times and to purchase tickets, please visit  www.SWEPfilmfest.org

A few of the highlights from our programming selection include Return of the River, a documentary which tells the story of the largest dam removal in history, currently unfolding in Washington State. It shows the great community effort to set the river free and an unlikely victory for environmental justice. A River Between Us tells the story of the oldest and most bitterly disputed water war in the West today. Now it is proposed to be one of the largest restoration projects in American history involving the removal of 4 dams on the Klamath River within Oregon and California. “In order to save a river, you must first heal a people”. Monsoon is a cinematic journey into the terrain where nature, science, belief and wonder converge in one of the most astonishing and breathtaking landscapes on earth, Monsoon is a film that captures the timelessness and rich human drama of our engagement with the natural world.

More movie information:

California and Water films will be presented on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. at Tahoe Art Haus Cinema. Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Christopher Beaver will present his film Tulare, The Phantom Lake, which explores the landscape of what was once the largest freshwater lake in America west of the Mississippi River; a lake that disappeared by the year 1910 due to water diversion and land reclamation for agriculture. As Christopher Beaver points out, "Tulare Lake had a surface area much greater than Lake Tahoe, but by 1910, it had fully disappeared. In odd twist of fate, global warming is perhaps creating the need and an opportunity to restore the lake as a natural reservoir and environmental restoration project." In addition to Tulare, Brant Allen of UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center will introduce their short film Lake Tahoe in Depth.

The New Environmentalist Series produced by Mill Valley Film Group and presented by multiple award-winning filmmaker Will Parrinello. Parrinello will be on hand to introduce four of his award-winning shorts narrated by Environmentalist and Academy Award winning actor Robert Redford. This series, which includes the short films Mother of the Rivers, Art for Change,Marshland Dreams and Dredging Up a Solution, will be screened at both Moe's Original Bar b'que on Saturday afternoon and Tahoe Art Haus Cinemaon Sunday morning. These four short films have won numerous awards having been screened at international film festivals throughout the world. Two films from this series will be shown in conjunction with Sundaymorning's showing of Monsoon, a rich cinematic journey on the Indian Subcontinent into the terrain where nature, science, belief and wonder converge in one of the most astonishing and breathtaking landscapes on earth.

Adventure Filmmaker Exposé will take place on Saturday evening at 6:15 p.m. at Tahoe Art Haus Cinema. This session begins with two 30 minute films - Fisherman's Son and We Trust Your Judgement. Local adventure filmmakers Tom Day, Mike Hatchett and athlete Jeremy Jones will then present short films and material of their choice with Q & A afterwards. This is the perfect opportunity to celebrate some of our local Tahoe talent.

Water and Fish will feature the films Liquid Gold, Return of the River and Emerald Water of the Klamath Siskiyou on Sunday afternoon at Tahoe Art Haus Cinema. This particular series of films will address the rare California golden trout, as well as an amazing story about the removal of two large dams on Washington's Elwha River, which is the country's largest river restoration project in history and is opening up miles of prime salmon spawning that was lost for decades. The story involves a local tribe that once subsisted on the fish. And finally the story of an area with dense wild rivers in the heart of one of the most biologically rich regions of the country that is now being threatened by industrial strip mining. Filmmaker Darren Campbell will introduce this series and a CalTrout spokesman will discuss their work around the state and share insights on some of the Tahoe region's fish populations.

These are just a sampling of the extraordinary environmental films included in the upcoming film festival program. For further information, please visit www.swepfilmfest.org.

ABOUT SWEP - Our mission is to promote environmental stewardship by connecting students to their community and local environment through comprehensive watershed education and service learning. We fulfill our mission by collaborating with local teachers, school districts and community partners to address pertinent environmental issues. Since 1996, SWEP programs have engaged over 9,000 students each year in grades K-12, emphasising service learning that provides multiple benefits to students and their communities. SWEP programs help schools meet their state requirements in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. “Many of our projects and programming serve as gateway to college and career pathways in environmental sciences and other technical fields” says Missy Mohler, Executive Director of SWEP.

Please show your support for this important educational program by attending the 20th Anniversary gala and film festival. For more information about our educational programs, please visit www.4swep.org or contact Missy Mohler at missy@4swep.org 530-583-1430.