Murphys, CA…The Sierra Nevada Film Festival opens at Black Bart Playhouse on March 31, 2018. Films include: A letter to Congress. Wallace Stegner’s 1960 letter to Congress about the importance of wilderness is the framework for a new message, one in which our unified voice can help prevent the transfer of our most valuable heritage— our public lands— to private and corporate interests. 

Christopher Newman, Amani King, Dalia Burde | 2017 | 3 min. | USA
Aghanashini 
Aghanashini is a documentary about a river of the Western Ghats of India that still flows in its natural course. There are no dams on the Aghanashini to change its flow, nor industry along its path to pollute its water. When ‘development’ is the mantra of any government in India, this silent river is holding onto its ground, nurturing the land and forests, and providing life for hundreds of thousands of people along its flow. 
Ashwini Kumar Bhat | 2017 | 41 min. | India

The Local Oyster Stout
An oyster farmer, a shucker, and a brewery collaborate on Maryland’s first farm to table Oyster Stout beer, reviving a time-honored tradition of the industrial past and charting a future for sustainability in the Chesapeake.
Mark Burchick and Jena Richardson | 2017 | 8 mins. | USA
L’estoc
“Problems can also be opportunities” Jordi Mayals. We discovered L’estoc on a back street of Barcelona and were so impressed with the philosophy and people behind the project that we decided to spend a few days learning about the work so we could share the story of L’estoc with everybody else.
Bessie Byrne | 2017 | 9 min. | Australia, Spain

A Fence and an Owner
At the Ranney Ranch in arid Corona, New Mexico, adaptive multi-paddock grazing implemented during a 15 year drought is restoring soils and benefiting the environment.
Peter Byck | 2017 | 10 min.| USA
http://www.soilcarboncowboys.com/films 

The Last Pig
Through this personal journey, “The Last Pig” raises crucial questions about equality, the value of compassion and the sanctity of life. Comis’ soul-bearing narrative carries us through his final year of farming pigs, the struggle to reinvent his life, and the ghosts that will haunt him forever. “The Last Pig” is a lyrical meditation on what it means to be a sentient creature with the power to kill. Deeply immersive, the film follows a pig farmer through his final year of slaughtering pigs. Through sparse, intimate musings, the farmer reveals the growing conflict of a life spent “peddling in death.”
Allison Argo | 2017 | 52 mins. | USA

Dug Out
Ben and James have been on several ‘adventures’ together, from pulling a sofa across southern England to swimming the length of a knee deep river in Dorset. Making films about their trips has become a part of the journey. They wanted to build on these journeys in their latest project but also make something about more than themselves – to capture the beauty of the landscape, the people and the wildlife they encountered would have to be more important than any distance or number of miles they could travel. It was with this in mind that they came up with the idea of DugOut, an idea as simple as the name suggests: they would travel to the Ecuadorian Amazon, live with an indigenous community, learn from them how to build a canoe, then take that canoe on a journey… The film covers the two month trip, documenting their time in the Huaorani community as they built a dugout canoe, then the journey downstream through Ecuador’s Yasuni region – one of the most biodiverse areas of the world.
Benjamin Sadd | 2017 | 40 min.| USA

Blood Road
Blood Road follows the journey of ultra-endurance mountain bike athlete Rebecca Rusch and her Vietnamese riding partner, Huyen Nguyen, as they pedal 1,200 miles along the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail through the dense jungles of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Their goal: to reach the crash site and final resting place of Rebecca’s father, a U.S. Air Force pilot shot down over Laos some 40 years earlier. During this poignant voyage of self-discovery, the women push their bodies to the limit while learning more about the historic ‘Blood Road’ they’re pedaling and how the Vietnam War shaped their lives in different ways.
Nicholas Schrunk | 2017 | 96 min. | USA
http://www.bloodroadfilm.com
HOST: The film festival is hosted by Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch. The mission of Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch is to protect, promote, and restore healthy forests and watersheds to maintain the quality of life in the Sierra Nevada. Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch supports responsible forest management and logging methods.
SPONSORS: Dr. Dorit Eliou (http://www.doriteliou.com), Penny Sarvis, Sol Sierra (http://www.sol-sierra.com), OARS (https://www.oars.com)

DOORS OPEN 4:45 PM
5:00  Welcome
5:05 A letter to Congress
5:09 Aghanashini 
5:52 Intermission
6:32 The Local Oyster Stout
6:41 L’estoc
6:51 A Fence and an Owner
7:02 The Last Pig
7:57 Intermission
8:15 Dug Out
8:55 Blood Road
10:32 Raffle and Closing

Admission: $15 at door, $10 online
Date March 31, 2018
Time: Doors open 4:45pm; Films start at 5pm
Location: Murphys Creek Theater, Black Bart Playhouse, 580 S Algiers Rd, Murphys, California 95247
Hosted by: Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch
www.sierrafilmfest.org

2018 UPCOMING SCREENINGS:
NEWSOME HARLOW | MURPHYS | April 22