Spotlight Event “BY HAND”

“By Hand” director Kellen Keene, the documentary’s subjects twin brothers Casey and Ryan Higginbotham and the film’s composer, Todd Hannigan, will be attending the 3rd Annual NatureTrack Film Festival Saturday, March 21 at the festival’s evening “Spotlight” event (St. Mark’s In-the-Valley, Stacy Hall, 2901 Nojoqui Ave, Los Olivos).

The evening begins at 5:00 p.m. with hors d’oeuvres and pizza from Full of Life Flatbread, wine from Grimms Bluff Winery and beer from M. Special Brewing Company. A screening of “By Hand” is at 5:45 p.m. followed by a Q&A with the film’s creators.

“By Hand” tells the story of Casey and Ryan, Pismo Beach natives, as they embark on a 2,200-mile adventure from Alaska to Mexico on 18- foot paddleboards. The brothers carried nothing more than two dry bags of gear each and a camera. No support boats, no paddles. The journey had never been tried before.

The adventure was the twins’ attempt to escape comfort, reconnect to the natural world and set a new bar for ocean adventure. “By Hand” is a coming of age story that celebrates the mentorship found in the natural world, a testament to human potential and an unspoken promise to never quit on your brother.

“I approach every project with an attitude that the story comes first,” says Keene. “All it took to spark my interest was hearing the words come out of their mouths, ‘We’re going to paddle self-contained and unassisted from Alaska to Mexico, all by hand.’ This was an unheard of commitment.”

“Free Solo” director Jimmy Chin commented about the twins’ undertaking, “As far as expeditions go, it’s got to be up there as one of the most difficult trips of any kind.”

The film premiered at the 2020 Santa Barbara International Film Festival to great acclaim.

A second show of “By Hand” will be Sunday, March 22 at 2:45 p.m. at the Los Olivos Community Organization Hall (The Grange, 2374 Alamo Pintado Ave, Los Olivos).

Tickets for the “By Hand” Spotlight evening are $30. Spotlight events are included with the festival’s All-Access Pass.

For more information on events or to purchase tickets CLICK HERE

About NatureTrack Film Festival

NatureTrack Film Festival was founded by Sue Eisaguirre, who conceived the idea for a local nature film festival as an extension of, and fundraiser for, the non-profit NatureTrack Foundation that she started in 2011. NatureTrack introduces schoolchildren to outdoor spaces from the seashore to the inland oak woodlands of Santa Barbara County by providing cost-free outdoor field trips. Utilizing local trails and beaches throughout the county, NatureTrack provides experiences that encourage students to embrace the natural world with respect and wonder, inspiring them to be stewards of our natural resources; and prepares them with leadership skills and habits for lifelong learning. Since 2011, NatureTrack has provided more than 22,000 outdoor experiences for school-aged students. Demand for the curriculum-coordinated program has increased every year with teachers praising the docent-led excursions that align with classroom curriculum. More information about NatureTrack Foundation can be found at www.naturetrack.org.

Get to know attending filmmaker Isaac Hernandez

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Better Together Bucket Brigade interior mud film Still 8

Better Together Trailer from Mercury Press International on Vimeo.

The NatureTrack Film Festival is excited to welcome Director Isaac Hernandez and Producer Nancy Black to the 2020 Festival in Los Olivos, March 20-22. It’s not widely known that Santa Barbara was the birth place of the modern environmental movement. The horrific events that sparked that movement created a lasting impression on our community.

Better Together, shares the remarkable truth that…

Isaac Hernandez

Community Makes the Difference

The response to a horrendous oil blowout fifty years ago in Santa Barbara sparked the modern environmental movement, creating a culture that continues to inspire local solutions to global problems.

The 1969 Union Oil blowout mobilized the Santa Barbara community to fight for the environment, inspiring nonprofit organizations into existence, as well as Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency and the first interdisciplinary Environmental Studies program, at UCSB. The legacy of the oil spill continues to inform this community, which keeps coming together, providing local solutions to global environmental problems; such as when over 3,000 volunteers joined the Santa Barbara Bucket Brigade to dig the mud from homes after the deadly 2018 debris flow.

Says Isaac, “This film started as a love letter to Santa Barbara, the community that adopted me. It soon became a personal journey in search of hope in humanity. What I learned along the way made me realize that I have no right to be hopeless, only to continue fighting for a better world, the way the people in the film have for generations.”

Isaac Hernández started making family films as a child in his hometown of Madrid, Spain. His dream of becoming a cinematographer brought him to California, where he studied film at Brooks Institute of Photography. Thirty three years, after many detours into journalism, photography, playwriting, painting and creating short Ask Videos for nonprofits, he completed his first feature, an unconventional film told from the point of view of a community. Many other projects will follow, including a memoir on growing up watching censored American films during Franco’s dictatorship.

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Get to know attending filmmaker Jeff McLoughlin

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The NatureTrack Film Festival is excited to welcome Director Jeff McLoughlin to the 2020 Festival in Los Olivos, March 20-22. Produced by local museum, Wildling Museum of Art & Nature, this extraordinary film captures one of our local National Monuments, the Carrizo Plain, in a unique way – through the eyes of artists.

Carrizo Plain – A Sense of Place, recently screened at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, is a cinematic journey into a remarkable remnant of early California — the Carrizo Plain National Monument. Explored through the eyes of three artists, Chris Chapman, John Iwerks, and Bill Dewey, the Carrizo Plain comes to life in this documentary that reveals the special character of this hidden landscape. Through their personal sense of place, we discover what makes the Carrizo Plain National Monument and places like it so important for us all.

Jeff remarks, “The film profiles the work and words of three artists with decades-long experience in interpreting the sublime beauty of the Carrizo Plain National Monument. Located at the eastern edge of San Luis Obispo County in Central California, the Carrizo is the state’s last remaining remnant grassland. It provides a window into early California as it would have appeared prior to the gold rush.

Every person has a unique way of seeing a place as well as interpreting its value on a human level. The intellectual concept of what makes a landscape unique as well as the emotional connection that a special place holds for them reflect in ways that are profound to each individual. Combined, this constitutes their personal “Sense of Place”.

Subjects of a film like this one are all multifaceted characters with busy creative lives of their own. The artists were lending time and energy to a documentary film production with faith that the story I planned to tell would be worthy and reflective of who they are and the love they share for the Carrizo. For me as a producer, the job is to coax out authentic reflections of the plain that reveals the artist’s level of passion and enhances the viewer’s understanding. Each artist had his or her own story and expertise, much of which was unknown to me at the inception of filming. Such is the wonderful onion that is documentary filmmaking.”

Filmmaker Jeff McLoughlin has spent the last decade focused upon documentary films that explore California’s natural history, environmental issues, and art. His credits include the award-winning environmental film, “The Condor’s Shadow” which is currently in international broadcast distribution. His three most recent works are short films that explore the concept of “artists for preservation” – individuals who focus their creative energies on the bridge that art can provide to an appreciation of the natural world. Further notes on these films can be found on the website for Jeff’s production company – GoodEyeFilms.com.

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Get to know attending filmmakers Chris Smead and Gordon Gurley

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Highline cast Chris Smead Chris Smead Gordon Gurley Gordon Gurley

The NatureTrack Film Festival is excited to welcome back Director Chris Smead and his Co-Director for Highline, Gordon Gurley, to the 2020 Festival in Los Olivos, March 20-22. Chris brought us Rae Lakes in 2018, The High Sierra Trail in 2019, and will be giving us a Southern California premiere of his first full-length film, Highline, this coming March. Chris is the founder of Outmersive Film.

We are very excited that both Chris and Gordon will be coming to the festival to give insight into the making of their film. One thing we can always expect when we watch a film produced and directed by Chris and his Outmersive team – we will learn more about the trail’s history, and we will want to grab our hiking boots and experience it for ourselves.

Highline follows 5 hikers as they traverse a lesser known mountain range in Utah called the Uinta (you-inta).  Viewers will experience the adventures and challenges along the way. Local archaeologist Tom Flanigan adds another layer of depth to the experience by sharing stories from the past and conveying the importance of this lesser known place. As the story progresses, viewers begin to learn more about the hikers, and why they choose to hike for days, weeks, and even months at a time. Stories of PTSD recovery, addiction recovery, health, and family issues are heavy topics in the film.

The Highline premiere in Utah brought 400 people to the showing, and back to back screenings in Salt Lake City were sold-out, as are 2 showings in Tennessee. It is clear that Outmersive is producing films that people want to see!

If you would like to know more about the “behind the scenes” adventures creating the Highline film, we recommend listening to Backcountry Exposure’s Backpacking Experience Podcast with Devin. A wonderful interview with Chris Smead.

Information on hiking the trail can be found here.

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Get to know Blue Ventures’ Biography of Madame Kokoly

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Kokoly Kokoly

The NatureTrack Film Festival is excited to welcome Tom Collinson, a representative of Blue Ventures, which produced Kokoly. Blue Ventures is a British marine conservation NGO, dedicated to rebuilding tropical fisheries with coastal communities.

While there are many films about the impact of climate change on our biodiversity, it is also important to highlight the impact of climate change on the humans who rely upon that biodiversity to live.

Madame Kokoly

Kokoly offers an insight into the life of an incredible woman. Against a backdrop of extreme poverty, personal loss and a marine environment changing beyond her control, Kokoly lives on a knife edge. Kokoly follows a traditional Vezo fisherwoman Madame Kokoly – as she reflects on her life experiences and carries out her daily routine in and around the coastal waters of southwest Madagascar. This film features female-only voices from one of Africa’s most remote regions.

Says Blue Ventures, “This film was produced with support from the Skoll Foundation and is a product of the Sundance Institutes ‘Stories of Change’ grant.

The film is a powerful and personal exploration of how one woman is navigating her daily life against a backdrop of poverty and marine biodiversity loss. It’s important that voices from marginalised communities are amplified; communities who will bear the brunt of the effects of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss. We hope this film will be a valuable contribution to this conversation.”

Learn more: Read Oceanographic Magazine article by Garth Cripps

 

Get to know attending filmmaker Yeliz Motro

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Escape Escape

The NatureTrack Film Festival is excited to welcome Director Yeliz Motro and Producer Catherine Nelson to the 2020 Festival in Los Olivos, March 20-22. Animation is a singularly unique way to illustrate a relationship with nature or the world. NTFF is very pleased this year to have had a number of excellent animation projects submitted to the festival – from those submissions, we were able to accept a larger number than ever before, two of them being student films!

Beginning with a simple train trip, a little girl searching for serenity, determines to escape into the wilderness. Her journey ends, only when she is wild enough to become a part of it.

Yeliz Motro

Yeliz relates, “Between March 2018 to June 2019, I directed a 2D/3D hybrid short for my senior film at SCAD, made up of 2D backgrounds and a 3D character textured and rendered to fit the illustrations. We also incorporated a subtle style shift between the beginning and the end of the short, starting with a “clean” look (graphic, geometric, refined) and slowly transitioning to “wild” (loose, painterly, impressionistic) as the character moves deeper into the forest.” To learn more about the processes used to create her animation visit: yelizmotro.wixsite.com/anim/escape

Yeliz Motro is an animator, originally from Istanbul, Turkey. Graduated from SCAD Atlanta, she is an avid traveller, with her art frequently taking inspiration from concepts of childish curiosity and adventurous wonder.

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Get to know attending filmmaker John M. Mastriano

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The NatureTrack Film Festival is excited to welcome John M. Mastriano to the 2020 Festival in Los Olivos, March 20-22. Inspired by the stories told to him about his father’s life, this film demonstrates the connection that can be made through the power of nature.

John Mastriano

A poignant story, Guidance, tells a first person account of connection. Says director John, “John Thomas Mastriano lost his hard-fought battle with cancer on October 25, 1989, at the age of 31. John was my dad. I was too young to remember much about him, but I was lucky enough to grow up surrounded by many people who knew him well and enjoyed telling stories about him. Fathers can guide you through life in all sorts of ways. This is a story about me and my father’s shared passion for nature, wildlife and exploration and how learning about him guided me to that passion. I wanted to use my own personal experience to inspire people to find inspiration and fulfillment in the wake of great loss.”

John’s story exemplifies how children can connect with nature, even when that guiding hand is felt through the stories left behind by those who knew a father would have wanted to share his passion with his child.

Director Biography:

Director, DP, and filmmaker. Born on Long Island, NY in 1986. Developed a passion for nonfiction storytelling while attending The State University of New York at Oswego in the mid-2000s. Possesses tremendous appreciation for wildlife and the natural world.

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Get to know attending filmmaker Elizabeth Lewis

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duck saved copy Waters of March Waters of March

The NatureTrack Film Festival is excited to welcome Elizabeth March to the 2020 Festival in Los Olivos, March 20-22. An animator of award winning films, Elizabeth’s talent will be on full display!

Waters of March is the classic written by Tom Jobim and performed by jazz singer Stacey Kent. The delicately rendered animated drawings move at a rollicking pace transitioning back and forth from real to abstract images telling the ever-changing story of loss and hope.

Elizabeth Lewis

Says Elizabeth, “My films are based on poetry and my interpretations are intensely personal. The imagery varies from close representation of the words to abstract. I am inspired by nature. I live in the woods beside a river and every image in this film is from direct experience. The film is a tribute to my late brother and the journey he took in his last year. Although the images move quickly, the references to illness, life, medicine, hope and ultimately the continuation of life is there. Every word and phrase of this song has meaning in this context. I had heard this music before. It is a classic dating back many decades. It is only when I heard Stacey Kent sing it on the radio that it really moved me. Her version is pure and hopeful. Some of the words in the song are dark and sometimes violent. Mixed in with this is beauty and hope all sung and interpreted with a sense of wonder and truth.”

Director Biography:

Born and raised in Montreal, Elizabeth later moved to Toronto. Her training is in fine arts painting and drawing. She attended schools in Montreal, Paris and Banff. Elizabeth got her start as an animator at the National Film Board of Canada, where she animated and designed the poetry film based on A kite is a Victim by Leonard Cohen. After moving to Toronto, she animated other poems by Earl Birney and William Carlos Williams. Professionally, she was on the animation teams at Nelvana and other studios including Walt Disney Animation Canada. Elizabeth was an animator on award winning films for Street Kids International produced by the National Film Board of Canada. She was awarded for her poetry films by the Poetry Film Festival in San Francisco and the Chicago Educational Film Festival. Waters of March was premiered in North America at the Flickers International Film Festival, Rhode Island 2019 and in France at the Cannes Short Film Festival September 2019 and has been accepted into six other festivals. Waters of March won Special Jury Award for Music Video at the Los Angeles Animation Festival 2019 and was a finalist at the ARPA Festival in LA.

 

Get to know attending filmmaker Lydia B. Smith

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Walking the Camino - Six Ways to Santiago J&Wbridge3

The NatureTrack Film Festival is excited to welcome Lydia B. Smith to the 2020 Festival in Los Olivos, March 20-22. Many people have never heard of this extraordinary pilgrimage but, many people have, and it’s excited a longing to travel the Camino de Santiago some day.

This year, we are excited to introduce Director Lydia B. Smith’s film “Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago” and have her on-hand to answer questions about the making of her film.

Bunk-beds. Blisters. Stunning landscapes. World-class snorers. Hot searing sun, freezing cold rain. Kindness from strangers. Debilitating injury. Unexpected romance. No toilet paper when you really need it. Profound grief and deep doubt. Hunger. Laughing with new friends. Total exhaustion. One is guaranteed to experience all of these emotions and moments, amongst others, while walking Spain’s ancient pilgrimage path, the Camino de Santiago.

Since the 9th century, millions of people, from spiritual seeking or devoutly religious pilgrims to adventure-driven travelers, have embarked on an epic pilgrimage across northern Spain that is known to be profoundly enlightening, spiritually nourishing, and physically challenging. Today, several hundred thousand people a year walk on this mostly unpaved path with little more than a backpack and a pair of boots.

Across Spain, this sacred path stretches westward to the city of Santiago de Compostela where the bones of the apostle St. James are said to be buried. The Camino is world-renowned; UNESCO named it a World Heritage Site and the Council of Europe declared it the first European Cultural Itinerary. Millions of people from all over the world have traveled this trail for over 1,000 years – in 2010 alone, over 270,000 people attempted the arduous trek – each one a seeker of something.

Walking the Camino is a total immersion experience that captures the trials and tribulations associated with a group of modern pilgrims who decide to walk the Camino de Santiago. The cast of people featured in the film run the gamut of ages (from age 3 to 73), as well as nationalities, religious backgrounds and motivations for coming to the Camino.

Through the stories of these six pilgrims and the priests, hospitaleros, and others featured along the way, Walking the Camino presents universal themes that highlight the communal and individual components of the Camino de Santiago. Solitude and community are inseparably intertwined as pilgrims seek to redefine the way they live their lives, deepen their relationships with themselves, and rediscover their connection with the world in which they live and in doing so, pilgrims become more self-aware. Out of that self-awareness inevitably emerges open-mindedness and selflessness as pilgrims, both in Walking the Camino and the thousands of others who have walked the journey, help each other through their trials and struggles to reach the finish line.

The star of the film, the Camino itself, is showcased with elegant cinematography that captures and depicts the gorgeous scenery and breathtaking vistas, from the raindrops on leaves to the fields of grass, mist covered mountains, colorful sunsets and truly inviting local people and historic surroundings. The documentary truly captures the personalities and inner challenges of the pilgrims and their transformations along the journey. The audience experiences the drive, questions, pains, joys, and revelations that these modern day pilgrims encounter along the way. Walking the Camino is guaranteed at the very least to inspire the audience to examine their own life’s journeys, if not pick up a backpack, strap on a pair of boots and set out for Santiago themselves.

Director Bio:

It’s hard to imagine another filmmaker better suited to capturing the Camino’s unique experience than Lydia, who makes her feature film directorial debut with Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago.

She lived in Barcelona for over six years and speaks flawless Spanish, in addition to Italian and Catalan. Her deep understanding of the Camino comes from Lydia’s avid passion for the outdoors, hiking, and nature along with her deep spiritual practice; she is a licensed spiritual practitioner from the Agape International Spiritual Center and from the United Centers for Spiritual Living. During the spring of 2008, Lydia walked the entire 500 miles of the Camino de Santiago, and has a deep understanding of the power of pilgrimage and of the captivating stories along the way that are waiting to be told.

Lydia B. Smith has a long history of collaboration with the producers on this project and began her work in documentaries 30 years ago. She directed, produced, and wrote: They’re Just Kids, a 26-minute educational documentary showing how children with disabilities can have a positive affect on our lives, A Legacy Revealed, a 40-minute historical documentary, Infiniti: Behind the Scenes, and a 20-minute biography, Bill Lansing: A Tribute

Additionally, she was Senior Producer on CNN’s Soldiers of Peace: A Children’s Crusade, Co-Producer and 2nd unit DP on the CNN Documentary, The Mystery of the Arctic Rose, 2nd unit DP on the PBS show, Stand Up, American Producer for Chilean TV’s, The Route to the Beringia, DP for Anthony Hopkins Teaches and more.

In addition to her producing and directing career, Lydia has worked as a camera assistant and operator on commercials, top music videos, and on major motion pictures including Ed Wood with Johnny Depp, Dan- gerous Minds with Michelle Pfeiffer, and Matilda with Danny DeVito, to name just a few.

Introducing our 2020 Films!

"Realm of the Robber" Directed by Moritz Katz “Realm of the Robber” Directed by Moritz Katz

Happy New Year!

The NatureTrack Film Festival is proud to release more information about our March 20-22, 2020 films!
To learn more about each of the selected films, click here.

Chosen from 100s of submissions from around the world, the NTFF team is working hard to bring the “best of the best” to our audience in Los Olivos for the upcoming 3rd annual NatureTrack Film Festival! In addition to the 65 selected from submissions through FilmFreeway, the team is also scouting out extraordinary films to curate (outside of judging) into the festival too. For example: NTFF alum Director Chris Smead’s first feature-length film “Highline: A Journey on the Uinta Highline Trail”, Director Eric Becker’s poignant film highlighting the 100th birthday and life of Dee Molenar in “My Friends Were Mountaineers”, and the latest Warren Miller film presented by Volkswagen “Timeless”. Check back often to learn about additional films!

In the coming weeks, NTFF is looking forward to introducing you to more of the directors that will be attending the festival – and updating you on the programs that will be offered throughout the extended weekend.

NatureTrack ignites passion for nature throughout the year by taking school-aged kids onto the local trails and beaches with trained docents for truly remarkable experiences in nature. These experiences help shape developing ideas on the importance of nature in their lives and keeping the environment healthy for generations to come. In an age where young eyes are often drawn for long periods of time to digital screens, NatureTrack takes them to areas where those young eyes are drawn by the cry of birds, the flash of brilliant flowers, the scurry of lizard feet, or the burbling of streams. Real life adventure in their very own backyards!

The NatureTrack Film Festival is an extension that ignites passion for nature through film. All proceeds benefit the NatureTrack Foundation and helps to ensure kids get out of the traditional school room and into the natural classroom with dedicated, trained docents who eagerly show them how exciting a trail can truly be if they focus their eyes and ears – observing and walking as citizen scientists.

During NTFF, some of those dedicated docents will take visitors on a special nature walk early Saturday and Sunday mornings. The perfect way to start each day with a breath of clean, fresh air and the beauty of wildflowers, before settling in for screenings that will expand your experience of our natural world.