This is first in a series to reflection on each documentary I saw at Mountainfilm Festival 2019.  Each post will be a reflection on the documentary and a focus on the impact and the issue that documentary is raising.  My goal is to share my authentic take on watching the films as a witness who cares about having an impact. This is not a film review.  Spoilers are probably all up in this.

Like every American and likely every person around the world, we've all heard the sitting President of the United States talk about the wall.  I won't do that justice by linking out to it.  I've always said when the topic comes up in conversation that having grown up in San Diego, I realize how pointless a wall as a concrete barrier is.  Pointless both because people find a way around it always, but pointless also in a greater sense.  The amount of folks who crossed the border from San Diego / Tijuana everyday for commerce, for work, for recreation...it always was and continues to be high.  I remember vacationing in Rosarito and Ensenada growing up.  I remember my neighbor working in Tijuana, driving himself to the border and walking across to save time so his company would pick him up on the other side.  The talk and rhetoric about the border has always been puzzling and annoying to me as someone from a border community.  The rhetoric is so heated that other side from the United States could besome form of oozing evil that will come through any gap, when in reality, the border is an artificial construct in a way you really understand only by living near one.  In reality it's always porous like Swiss cheese going in both directions, and we're better off economically, politically and as humans when we think about it this way.

I had heard that the monarch butterfly which migrates across the border by the millions was being threatened by Trump's border wall, and so was intrigued to catch this documentary at Mountainfilm 2019.  The premise of the film is a fascinating concept.  The filmmaker and a team of characters (literally and cinematically) will travel along the 1200 miles of the Colorado River that forms the border between Texas and Mexico from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico.  Canoes or kayaks, sure.  I fully admit that I didn't expect before immersing myself in the film that this would involve bikes and horses.  Bikes for the first stretch from El Paso because the river is fairly dried up, and horses through the amazing wildlands of Big Bend National Park.

Check out this beautiful imagery from The River and the Wall webpage and read more after the jump.

This is my second year at this amazing film festival, and I have to admit something to you dear reader.  I didn't want to talk about it.  I knew how transformative this experience was for me last year, anticipated it happening again this year, and I decided before going I was so protective of the community that goes to Mountainfilm and the experience I get to have there that I didn't want to share it with the world.  Via social media.  Here.  Anywhere. Because getting to be in this stunningly beautiful place, seeing films that are made to move me, exploring the caverns of my emotions, and illuminating the power of storytelling...these were all things I didn't want to talk about for fear the stampede might follow.  Something like "the first rule of Mountainfilm club is don't talk about it".

I was wrong.

The theme this year was Equity.  While the moderator of the opening symposium focused on this topic -  Dr Michael Sawyer - was right to say "equity is a way of life, not a theme at a film festival," I found myself in an interesting spot amongst my Mountainfilm friends (family really, but I digress).  At first I was explaining the concept of equity compared to equality...essentially verbally stumbling through a description of this diagram that reveals equality as just giving everyone the same regardless of need, compared to equity which gives according to the need:

By the end of the film festival, I was personally so appreciative of the rare opportunity to really explore in depth the concepts of intersectionality and privilege.  It's rare as a white woman for this the opportunity to do such a concentrated amount of internal work on myself with such rigor and consistency over the course of a weekend.  The organizers of the conference, like me, I think held some fear that my fellow white people who attend the conference would not react well to having their privilege called out and dissected.  In the final talk on Monday - aptly named "What Now?" - an attendee of color said their skepticism turned into appreciation and I was grateful and more than a little relieved to hear that perspective from a non-white attendee. 

I thought I would keep Mountainfilm to myself, and jealously guard it as a treasure that I get to experience every year among the stunning peaks of Telluride.  I believed despite the evidence of very few clicks on this site that by not posting about it...that maybe some others wouldn't hear about it and they wouldn't come.  But here's how the equity theme challenged me: it told me I was wrong.  That wealth is - yes - my privilege as a white person and my economic income that affords me the chance to get to Telluride and vacation there for the weekend, but it's also the wealth of ideas.  That through Mountainfilm I gain immeasurable knowledge and have a responsibility to share that bounty with others.  That by benefiting from these stunning films on difficult topics, I should leave and continue this conversation in any and every way possible to honor their beauty and creation.

So I am committing to sharing individual posts on each one of the films as my contribution and my commitment to not be an elitist prick about it.  Being elitist was never a good fit for me anyhow.  ;)

Each post will be a reflection on the documentary and a focus on the impact and the issue that documentary is raising.  There's a lot to unpack with each one, so I'll focus just on one documentary and issue at a time. My goal is to share my authentic take on watching the films as a witness who cares about having an impact. It will not be a review.  I'm not here to enumerate flaws. I'm not a filmmaker, nor am I in "the industry".  Plus, I didn't get my nickname "sunshine" because I'm critical. I rewatch my favorite movies. Often. #unapologetic

I'm excited to share this journey with you here, and especially to hear your comments and reflections on the documentaries and this experience.  I have come down from the mountaintop both literally and figuratively. 

Shall we? Let's go!