"There's more programming than ever, spread across half a dozen venues," says Mountainfilm executive director Peter Kenworthy, adding that the festival will bring back its free and very popular outdoor theater screenings in Town Park. "This year, we've expanded the programming all around and put together a fantastic list of films, many of them world premieres."
Some of those world premieres include Ken Burns's two-part documentary The Dust Bowl, and George and Beth Gage's Bidder 70, about Tim DeChristopher's monkey-wrenching disruption of a federal auction of oil and gas leases.
"Another of my favorites this year is The Lost Bird Project," Kenworthy says. "It's a film about Todd McGrain, a sculptor who does large sculptures of North American birds that have gone extinct, and he's trying to place them where they were last seen alive. It's an environmental adventure film with an obvious art overlay, so it combines a lot of things that Mountainfilm holds near and dear."
The symposium starts today at 9 a.m.; the film festival opens at 6:30 p.m. and runs through Monday. Individual program passes start at $25. For tickets, program schedule and weekend passes, visit www.mountainfilm.org.
May 25-28, 2012
