Wasatch Mountain Film Festival Review: Protecting Our Playground

Every day, more and more frequently, it feels as though there are a myriad of attacks on different aspects of American lives. Sometimes it feels like screaming into the void trying to get others on the same page of caring for the environment and the state of our national playgrounds. Wasatch Film Festival’s environmental impact short film block, a.k.a. “Protecting Our Playground,” is a reminder that there are good people out there who are fighting the good fight and making sure to leave more than just an obnoxious carbon footprint on the environment.  

Restoring the Headwaters
Director: Tom Attwater
Restoring Headwaters kicks off the block by launching us into the action of wildlife biologists and stream experts as they work in the upper part of the Big Hole Valley in Montana. What sometimes happens in nature are the instances of “Headcuts,” a type of knickpoint (or site of erosion) which inhibit or interrupt the flow of water in certain areas. Since this is happening in the Big Hole Valley, it is disrupting the ecosystem of some of the craziest birds you’ll ever see, called the “sage-grouse.” Thanks to an understanding landowner, a team of scientific superheroes works together on a massive project of ecological restoration and actually manages to restore the natural flow of water. It’s a hopeful and heartwarming start to the short film block, with stunning cinematography of Montana landscapes to boot!

The Book of George
Director: Danny Schmidt
In Danny Schmidt’s The Book of George, Schmidt takes the meaning of environmental impact and flips it on its head. The Book of George follows George McKenzie Jr., a conservation photographer and National Geographic Explorer. McKenzie’s life might seem idyllic as he shows us his peaceful home in Florida where he spends his free time being a mentor for youth at his local chapter of the Big Brothers and Sisters program, but his upbringing was anything but as a young African-American man growing up during the ‘90s in Brooklyn. When an almost fatal incident took place, McKenzie gave up on the streets and started pursuing wildlife photography thanks to mentor Charlie Hamilton James. With beautiful and heartbreakingly timed quotes from McKenzie like, “I am in awe of everything” or “Charlie weaponized my ability to dream,” The Book of George is not a short you’ll be forgetting anytime soon.

Arctic Alchemy
Director: Zeppelin Zeerip & Colin Arisman
Arctic Alchemy follows scientist and former pioneering outdoorsman Roman Dial as he goes on his 2024 seven-day research expedition. The goal of said expedition? To figure out what is turning streams in the Alaskan Brooks Range a rusty orange color. Oh, and whatever this phenomenon is, it’s also poisoning the waterways, killing salmon and affecting the population that lives off of the road networks. This is not something that’ll be an easy feat. While we watch the eccentric Dial and his team of researchers as they make way on figuring out the rust problem, we learn about who exactly this mystery scientist is: a family man, a grieving father and a nine-year-old boy at heart who will never get over his love for and infatuation with Alaska. With its own memorable quotes from Dial like, “The best way to fight off grief is to look for joy,” the film is equal parts fascinating and gutwrenching. For more than one reason, Arctic Alchemy is not one to miss. 

Inaccessible
Director: David Garrett Byars
Who among us hasn’t done their fair share of trespassing? Well, in Inaccessible, we join professional skier Griffin Post as he and his crew try to access seemingly inaccessible public lands in the Montana Crazies. Why are these public lands not so open to the public? It’s all thanks to the legal barriers and private property checkerboarding that took place when the American West enacted the Homestead Act. We watch as Post and co. try to access these lands— with little room for error, or it’s a measly six months in prison and a million-dollar lawsuit from the private companies that own these random squares of land. This is a worrying plot, due not only to the thought of repercussions for trying to access land that is our right to use as Americans, but also to the crazy-cool skiing and snowboarding we watch Post and friends attempt in the Crazy Mountains of Montana. 

First Light
Director: Kristopher Roller & Alex Broadstock
One of the more existential short films in our lineup, First Light follows the inhabitants of the most northern town in the whole world, Longyearbyen. The film follows those from all walks of life in the town’s population (that consists of amazingly over 50 different nationalities), such as the last miner in town, a female pastor, a tour guide and a father of two young girls. We watch these folks and see firsthand their experience and relationship to light in a town where the sun does not shine four months out of the year. Yes, you read that right. Starting around October 25 at 1:30 p.m., the sun in Longyearbyen will set and not rise for 112 days. Beautifully meditative on humans’ relationship with light and with each other, First Light will haunt you long after you view it. —Yonni Uribe

Read more film reviews by Yonni Uribe:
Film Review: The Drama
Film Review: Undertone

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