Mountainfilm in Telluride
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Mountainfilm in Telluride (MTF) is America’s premier festival of mountain, adventure, cultural and environmental film and video, held annually over Memorial Day weekend in the box canyon town of Telluride, Colorado. Begun in 1979, Mountainfilm is the oldest film festival celebrating the genre of mountain film in the United States.
Former festival director Rick Silverman wrote the following words in the introduction to the program for the 25th Mountainfilm, held in 2003: the “first Mountainfilm consisted of a mere dozen or so films spaced out over three evenings. The daytimes were spent climbing.”
Since that time Mountainfilm has grown to become a four-day event which not only screens nearly one hundred films but also hosts speakers, gallery exhibits, slide presentations, seminars, special events (a unicycle hockey game on main street, for example) and fosters heated on-the-street conversations.
Founders include Royal Robbins, Lito Tejada-Flores, then president of American Alpine Club Bob Craig and Bill Kees with help from former Climbing magazine owner/publisher Michael Kennedy and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard.
In the intervening years, Mountainfilm has hosted such notables as Wade Davis, Sir Edmund Hillary, Richard Holbrooke, Diane Feinstein, Galen Rowell, George Schaller, Phil Borges, Frans Lanting, Lynn Hill, David Brower, Pete Athans, Timmy O'Neill, Subhankar Banarjee, David Breashears, Norman Vaughan, Martin Litton, James Balog, Maurice Herzog, Gretel Ehrlich, Timothy Treadwell, David James Duncan, Julia Butterfly Hill, John Grunsfeld, Angela Fisher, Rick Ridgeway, and Carl Pope.
Some of the past films screened include The Story of the Weeping Camel, Travellers and Magicians, Genghis Blues, Murderball, Who Killed the Electric Car?, and Grizzly Man.
Not to be confused with Telluride Film Festival, another festival held annually in Telluride over Labor Day weekend.
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[edit] Motto
Mountainfilm’s motto is “Celebrating Indomitable Spirit.”
[edit] Mountainfilm on Tour
Mountainfilm on Tour is the Mountainfilm road show. Begun in 2000, the tour travels to over 100 locations worldwide and serves audiences totaling over 30,000 people.
[edit] MTF Mission Statement
Mountainfilm in Telluride is dedicated to educating and inspiring audiences about issues that matter, cultures worth exploring, environments worth preserving and conversations worth sustaining.
