Spokane Riverkeeper Presents: 2022 Wild & Scenic Film Festival

We’re so excited to present the films in person again after two years! The films will be shown at Hemmingson Auditorium | Gonzaga University. In addition to these wonderful films, there will also be fun door prizes at the in-person event, provided by our National Partners.

If you are unable to attend the in-person event, don’t worry! There is a virtual screening option for this event. You can watch the event live from your computer, cast to your Television, or watch the films on demand until September 25th at 11:55 PM with the purchase of a virtual ticket.

Thank you to all our locals sponsors for helping support the Spokane Riverkeeper in hosting this event. A special thank you to our primary sponsor, the Community Building Foundation, for their support.

The Spokane Riverkeeper is excited to announce the return of the Wild and Scenic Film Festival to Spokane! This film festival is the 8th annual screening of environmental films that feature nature's beauty, cutting-edge environmental issues, heart-warming stories, and more. Spokane Riverkeeper staff and other special guests will be introducing the films and providing updates about the important work happening in our watershed. This year’s films celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. These films highlight the fight for clean water around the world.

This year’s film list follows the fight for clean water around the globe. This year’s film list includes:

• Finding Salmon (Jeremy Monroe, David Herasumtschuk)

  • Follow 11-year-old, Keyona, into a wondrous world of trees, water, and friendly fish... and find the spirit of Salmon Watch, a program that connects Oregon youth to their backyard river ecosystems.

• Bodies of Water (Lavado Stubbs)

  • For many Bahamians, the ocean is home. From these waters comes sustenance, opportunity, and identity. But this relationship is also complex and paradoxical. With a population of over 90 percent African descent, The Bahamas endures a colonial past of trauma and enslavement that can’t be overlooked if their future is to remain hopeful, especially amidst the rising threats of climate change, resource extraction, and ecological decline. The ocean then links these worlds—the past and present, suffering and restoration, exploitation and preservation—and offers a path forward. Only by working together equitably will these opportunities of the ocean be fully realized and protected. Only by uniting as bodies of water—as advocates, educators, and environmentalists—will past legacies be amended and amazing new potentials be achieved.

• Community: Not On Our Soil – A Climate Justice Reality (Nicole Rodel, Justin Woods, Alessandra Squarzon, Alistair Daynes, Samuel Chevallier, ReWild Africa, African Climate Reality Project)

  • Marginalized and excluded communities of Cape Town fight for their right to clean water, and work together for community-led alternatives to sustainability.

• Guardians of the River (Shane Anderson)

  • Klamath River Indigenous leaders and youth fight to free their river from life-killing dams, restoring salmon, economy, and culture.

• Land of the Yakamas (Rush Sturges, Tyler Bradt)

  • “Land of the Yakamas” is a short film that focuses on the importance of the ancestral lands surrounding the general Nch’i-Wàna (Columbia River) area, as well as some of the environmental challenges the communities of the region face. Since Time Immemorial, Yakamas lived by the laws of the creator; honoring and protecting the resources that provide for the physical and spiritual sustenance of human beings. “Land of the Yakamas” fosters awareness of the unprecedented changes to Yakama Nation homelands and waters caused by the degradation of the environment over the last 150 years.

• The Voice of a River (Monica Gonzalez, Jarvis Smith, Carlos Gonzalez, Krono Lescano)

  • Mark Dubious’ act of sacrifice for the Stanislaus River is the simplest, most effective form of activism, one rooted in love. In 1979, Mark Dubois became a symbol of conservation and proof of how the power of resolve in one man can bring about change to our world when he was willing to sacrifice his life for the life of a river. The Voice of a River is the telling of this resolve 42 years later, after Mark made national headlines for chaining himself to a rock behind the New Melones Dam in protest of the threatened Stanislaus River scheduled to be flooded. The catalyst of legislation that eventually followed, saving numerous rivers thereafter, is testament to how humble actions can transform into larger movements that may preserve our global climatic future.

• Wastewater: A Tale of Two Cities (Sarah Franke)

  • Critical to the environment, public health, and quality of life, wastewater infrastructure in Alabama - and throughout the country – suffers from decades of lack of investment and racial discrimination and is increasingly threatened by the changing climate.

• Cracked (Mahmut Taş)

  • A little girl lives in a village with her mother where water sources are dwindling by day. Drought affects her imagination, even her doodles and drawings. Not only people but nature struggles with the unrelenting aridness. This little girl never loses hope. She tries to do as best she can, sacrificing herself for her beloved nature.

• A River Reborn (Ben Kalina)

  • Abandoned for generations amidst the ruins of coal country, the Little Conemaugh river and the communities it flows through are poised for an unlikely rebirth. Mile after mile the Little Conemaugh river in central Pennsylvania runs empty of life, poisoned by toxic pollution from countless abandoned coal mines. But a decade-long effort from a coalition of local groups suggests a different future for the Little Conemaugh, and new hope for rivers in coal country around the country.