2026 Wild & Scenic Film Festival
Film Program
Freya
2024 (4 min)
Feel inspired by 9-year-old Freya, who shares how she uses climbing as a practice to lean into discomfort and fear to help her navigate her neurodiversity. The strength she gains through both are applicable and inspirational to us all.
Return to the Earth
2025 (7 min)
What if your home could be handmade—from the ground beneath your feet? This intimate micro-documentary tells the story of Betty Seaman—a mother, builder, and teacher—who constructed her family’s cob home with her own hands. What began as a quest for affordable, sustainable shelter grew into a living classroom for resilience and community. But when wildfires came dangerously close to consuming everything she had built, Betty was forced to confront the stark realities of life on a changing planet. Filmed while the Palisades fires were still smouldering, her story emerges as one of survival, adaptation, and the possibility of building back without using toxic materials.
Kelp Currency
2025 (9 min)
Kelp forests are vital ocean ecosystems, but their ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide remains virtually unknown. Kelp Currency features groundbreaking research from the Seatrees Kelp Carbon Science Project and Scripps Institution of Oceanography to measure the carbon
benefits of kelp forests. Their goal is to develop a way to track kelp carbon budgets, with the hopes of unlocking new finance tools that could provide the missing funding needed to restore kelp forests globally. With up to 90% of California’s kelp forests lost in some areas, the film reiterates that now is the time to invest in science that could help fund large-scale restoration efforts.
Valley Under Fire
2025 (10 min)
When climber and National Park Service employee Nate Vince was fired under controversial
circumstances, he staged a protest by hanging an upside-down American flag off Yosemite’s iconic El Capitan, an act that captured national attention. This short documentary tells the story behind that moment and explores Nate’s deep connection to the park, his passion for climbing, and his commitment to protecting public lands and the communities built around them.
Forgotten Flavors
2026 Jury Award (13 min)
Our ancestors knew every edible plant, every healing herb—knowledge we’ve almost entirely lost. Forager Pascal Baudar moves through Southern California’s woodlands and desert with ancestral eyes, gathering what most would overlook. He teaches others to awaken senses dulled by modern life—to taste, smell, and touch their way back to an ancient knowing. He forages wild plants for food and fermentation, hand-harvests clay to craft vessels, creating an extraordinary feast that exists nowhere else. This intimate portrait reveals what we gain when we slow down enough to remember who we once were.
People of Red Mountain: Life Over Lithium
2025 (18 min)
People of Red Mountain (Atsa Koodakuh wyh Nuwu, in Paiute) is a grassroots organization with connections to the Fort McDermitt Paiute, Shoshone and Bannock Tribes. Our film People of Red Mountain: Life Over Lithium demonstrates our fights to protect our ancestral homelands through educating our communities and working to sway public opinion by telling our story.
Q&A with Filmmakers: The People of Red Mountain
INTERMISSION 20 minutes
Burning Man ticket raffle at the end of intermission
Red Wolf In Time Out
2026 Best Short Film
A child narrates the problem in full preteen gossip style while her step-dad animates it in the form of a classroom chalkboard lesson. The Red Wolf faces extinction due to unnecessary human fear and its absence has caused an environmental chain reaction.
The Bees And The Birds
2026 Best Student Filmmaker Award (4 min)
California’s native bees are facing an uncertain future. The Bees and the Birds explores this unfolding environmental crisis through the lens of a vibrant community garden that has become a safe haven for native bees, birds, and other wildlife. Through macro cinematography and stories from local gardeners and scientists, we see how small-scale efforts can have large impacts for local biodiversity.
Against the Herd
2025 (24 min)
Almost a century of overgrazinghas destroyed much of America’s public lands, but Cottonwood Ranch has discovered that cattle can actually be the key to restoring our rangelands. Now the Smith family must convince legislators that ranchers can actually be climate heroes, or they’re sure to lose their land.
Bears in Hot Tubs
2026 (17 min)
Bears in Hot Tubs is an intimate short film co-created with Maddie Bear and her kin. Set in suburban Los Angeles, it reveals black bears as sentient neighbors navigating a shared landscape. Through poetic imagery and quiet observation, the film reimagines coexistence as an invitation to co-thrive with care, empathy, and respect.
Special Thanks to all of our Sponsors:
Tom Clark Solutions, Skin Care by Tracy, Woody Calculus, Wildwood Open Lands, Tahoe Pyramid Bikeway, Northern Nevada Hopes