‘Wild & Scenic’ Film Fest coming to Tucson

The biggest environmental film festival on the West Coast is coming to Tucson this week, and you best not miss it.

For the third year in a row, the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival is descending on Tucson, courtesy of our local eco-warriors, the Center for Biological Diversity.

The fest is one day only, this Wednesday, Nov. 12, at the Loft Cinema. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the show gets underway at 6:30.

On tap is a choice selection of short, medium and feature length environmental films, from a jeremiad against the evils of the paper coffee cup to a futuristic imagining of a world that successfully combated global warming.

The feature film is Mark Harvey’s “A Land Out of Time,” which outlines the Bush administration’s giveaway of vast swaths of public land to the energy industry.

(The full fest, scheduled for Jan. 9-11 in Nevada City, Calif., has dozens of films and bands, and Tucson’s fest offers only a sampling of seven films. But honestly, how many environmental films can you watch in one day, anyway?)

Earlier today I traded a few emails with Hypatia Porter, whose award-winning short, “For the Price of a Cup of Coffee” will be one of seven films featured on Wednesday.

The 15-minute film explores the ecological cost of disposable goods like paper coffee cups, which we use once and then chuck in the nearest trash bin.

Of her inspiration behind the film, Hypatia writes:

I was feeling overwhelmed with the state of the environment, and was trying to find a way to illustrate the issue that is most important to me - not cups or waste specifically, but a mindset that chooses convenience first.

I realized as I was making the film, that I am absurdly wasteful and given the option of saving 2 minutes by using something wasteful, I take it. Often without any thought.

I believe that if we start to look at what we use, and how much we use, where it comes from and where it goes more discerningly, we’ll be examining the issue at the root of all of our environmental issues, and hopefully start to live a little more sustainably.

Hypatia, pictured here, looks like she could use a cup of coffee herself. But only in a reusable cup, ‘natch.

I love the concept behind this film, because it hits on the idea that in the grand scheme of things, it is not some villain in a black hat — whether it be logging companies, or the Bush Administration, or what have you — that is ultimately responsible for fucking up the environment, but our own mundane, prosaic activities — using and throwing away disposable crap like paper coffee cups and plastic bags, and the million other seemingly trivial acts that we do for the sake of convenience alone that is really doing the planet in.

Dontcha think?

For some previews of films both on the Tucson slate, and not, go here.

I’ll see you at the fest. Bring your friends. And for god’s sake, don’t let me see any of you there drinking from a paper Starbucks cup.

John Collins Rudolf
(Photo at top from “For the Price of a Cup of Coffee”)