Mountainfilm Represented at the People’s Climate March in NYC

On Sunday, September 21, I was one of more than 400,000 people who participated in the People's Climate March in New York City. The event was buoyant and impressive. As the New York Times wrote, "the People’s Climate March was a spectacle even for a city known for doing things big."

Not surprisingly, the Mountainfilm community was well represented. My daughter and I saw many people who have graced the festival’s stages, including photographer James Balog (featured in Chasing Ice), Chanda Chevannes (director of Living Downstream), author Jeff Goodell, Merete Mueller (director of Tiny: a Story about Living Small), Bryn Mooser (director of The Rider and the Storm), filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg, scientist and author Sandra Steingraber and author John Vaillant (who will bring his new book to Mountainfilm in 2015).

We also had the pleasure of spending time with activist Tim DeChristopher (Bidder 70), who had many fans approach him throughout the march, as well as author Terry Tempest Williams, who wrote a lovely piece for Orion Magazine about the march, expressing that "the present is now locking hands with the future."

Ben Wolf

We knew many other Mountainfilm festival guests in attendance, but we didn't see them all, such as author Bill McKibben, one of the march’s organizers. The Yes Men were in attendance. Daryl Hannah was in the mix. Josh Fox (director of Gasland) was there. And Jeff Orlowski (director of Chasing Ice) and author/filmmaker Jon Bowermaster both filmed the event. The previous night, Louie Psihoyos (director of The Cove) had projected clips from his upcoming documentary about species extinction (Racing Extinction) onto the side of the United Nations headquarters building.

I saw a few people I hope to convince to speak at Mountainfilm, such as Al Gore (who I greeted amidst a swarm of people). And, of course, aside from all of these prominent folks, I know many Mountainfilm audience members marched in New York. I’d love to hear about your experience at this historic event.

—David Holbrooke, Telluride Mountainfilm Festival Director