Reigniting Indomitable Spirit: A Mountainfilm Recap
I first attended Mountainfilm back in 2014. My husband Orion has been attending since 2009, when he accidentally—cosmically, really—discovered the fest on a roadtrip with friends. Since then, it’s become a landmark of folklore and reunion amongst our friends. On Memorial Day weekends we gather in Telluride, Colorado, for the soul-stirring cocktail of documentary films, expanding awareness, hot tubs, heart talks. It had been five years since I had been back and my soul was craving it.
While the in-person festival is over, you can still catch the films via the Mountainfilm website. I’ve put together a list of my top films from this past weekend—while they’re all completely different, they also completely belong together in the sense that they’ll crack your heart open a little wider before you started.
This fiercely emotional film follows the first group of women wildlife rangers in Kenya through their six-month training. More than just gaining technical skills, the unique format of the training also leads them through trauma-informed emotional exercises that invite them to confront their deepest demons, fears, and wildest hopes. Amidst facing both the patriarchal and financial odds stacked against them, they journey deep inside to engage their power in a way that’s opening new pathways for women in their culture.
Set in the Amazon rainforest, The Territory follows an environmental activist, the Uru-eu-wau-wau tribe (which currently has around 200 members left), and land-grabbers who pose an increasingly-threatening presence to the shrinking jungles of Brazil. The film takes some surprising turns, and without giving too much away, is a powerful example of what it looks like for a film’s subject to take the narrative into their own hands.
The director of Bad Axe moved back home to Bad Axe, Michigan, during the pandemic and documented his family’s struggle to keep their restaurant afloat. After some family members attend a BLM protest, the restaurant draws attention from local white supremacists—stirring up complex dynamics for the family to examine alongside each other. Full of fire and heart, this film is really special and won the jury award at the festival.
Orion and I put this film on our list because of the director, Ben Knight, a Mountainfilm legend. I knew nothing about Jess Kimura’s snowboarding career, let alone the unimaginable grief she’s courageously faced to become the true powerhouse that she is at her core. This was the last film we saw this year and it felt fitting as Jess’s indomitable spirit was the final impression I’m carrying with me in returning home. I’m struck by how much we’re able to endure, to survive—and how often what we think might end us is actually only our beginning.