Sedona News – The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to partner with the Mimesis Documentary Film Festival and Arizona State University to present “Mimesis Film Festival: Earth Day Program” on Tuesday, April 22 at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre.
The four films presented by Mimesis Documentary Festival to celebrate Earth Day in 2025 take us from the marshlands of Jamaica Bay in Queens NY to the dry woods of the Colorado Rockies, and from Himalayan ravines back across the Ocean to the meadows Sierra Nevada. In a polyphonic elegy to times and places near and far, the artist filmmakers offer us creatively distinct way to encounter our planet anew.
The Mimesis Film Festival was curated and will be hosted by Luiza Parvu, Senior Programmer for the Mimesis Documentary Festival in Boulder, CO and Assistant Professor, Film Directing, Poitier Film School, Arizona State University.
“Mimesis Documentary Festival in Boulder is excited to bring a snippet of our programming across the Mountain West to Sedona Film Festival Theaters”, said Parvu. “This program connects audiences in Arizona and Colorado and brings renewed hope and urgency to our shared striving for more sustainable, healthier modes of interacting with our planet, and imagining our future.”
The four films featured in this special presentation are:
The Whelming Sea
Directed by Sean Hanley, 2020, 28:52 min
Three animal lives entangle at the edge of the sea. Horseshoe crabs spawn on eroded urban beaches, migrating shorebirds seek sustenance at a midpoint, and humans attempt to make a difference in this age of mass extinction.
The Lost Season
Directed by Kelly Sears, 2023, 6:09 min
Earth is experiencing its final winter. A streaming company hires all available camera operators to film the final weeks of this soon-to-be-lost season. After seeing their footage as a form of ecological exploitation, the camera operators refuse to commodify further climate collapse with their labor.
47˚ C
Directed by Heidi Morstang, 2023, 25:40 min
Sierra Nevada, California, 2019. World-leading Climate Change scientist Camille Parmesan and Evolutionary Biologist Michael C Singer have conducted field work on the ecology and evolution on the Edith’s Checkerspot butterfly since 1968. The film is narrated through their investigations and discoveries during field work and is a glimpse into their life-time dedication to this study. During their search for these vulnerable insects, we are presented with a microcosm seen in relation to global climate change patterns. Supported by President Macron’s Make Our Planet Great Again Award to Camille Parmesan.
Heaven Rain Flows Sweetly
Directed by Shasha Li, 2023, 67:07 min
Shasha, a nomad who has moved frequently, arrives in Cascadian Oregon. Somehow, the smell of rain here reminds her of the Himalayan foothills she originally comes from. She grows an abundant garden, yet the sky suddenly rains ashes in autumn. Wildfires have erupted all around the state, and the smog keeps seeping into her house, forcing her to evacuate. Driving through the Mad Max-esque haze, her thoughts drift back to Lijiang, her ancestral hometown in China, where her maternal Nakhi tribe celebrates Fire as a divine natural force every summer. A journey of tracing dream-like currents of memories unfolds.
“Mimesis Film Festival: Earth Day Program” will show at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Tuesday, April 22 at 4:00 p.m. Tickets are $12 general admission and $9 for film festival members.
For tickets and more information, please call 928-282-1177. Both the theatre and film festival office are located at 2030 W. Hwy. 89A, in West Sedona. For more information, visit: www.SedonaFilmFestival.org.