The ClearWater Conservancy will bring the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival to State College for the fourth time this fall. Hosted by presenting sponsor Appalachian Outdoors and benefitting ClearWater Conservancy, the festival will be held at 7 p.m. Sept. 20 at the State Theatre in State College.

Festival-goers will see 11 films in all: one feature length film, one half-length feature and nine shorts selected locally from more than 50 award-winning films about nature, community activism, adventure, conservation, water, energy and climate change, wildlife, environmental justice, agriculture and indigenous cultures. Together, the films will run a little over two hours.

This year, ClearWater has selected five films focused on youth, including the feature-length film “Mother Nature’s Child: Growing Outdoors in the Media Age” by Camilla Rockwell and Wendy Conquest. The film focuses on children growing up in a technologically driven time, and examines the benefits of unstructured outdoor play, risk-taking, connection with nature, healthy rites of passage, and what it means to educate the “whole child.”

The youth theme continues with four short films which profile young people tackling environmental issues in communities across the U.S.

Our half-length feature film this year is “Connecting the Gems” by Deia Schlosberg and Gregg Treinish. The pair complete a 520-mile trek through one of the Northern Rockies’ premiere wildlife corridors, investigating migration habits and paying particular attention to large carnivores and the challenges they face as they journey between Yellowstone to the Frank Church region.

The topic of wildlife movement is as relevant in Central Pennsylvania as it is in the Rockies and ClearWater has a wildlife corridor project underway near State College.

For a complete list, descriptions and links to the films to be shown visit the Film Festival webpage.

Advance purchase tickets are $14, $12 with student I.D. On the evening of the show, tickets will be $16 at the door. For an additional fee, attendees can become a member of ClearWater at a discount in the theatre lobby during the show. Purchase tickets online.

Tickets may also be purchased in downtown State College at Appalachian Outdoors, 123 South Allen Street and at the State Theatre box office, 130 W. College Avenue and at the ClearWater Conservancy, 2555 North Atherton Street. For mail-order tickets, call ClearWater at 814-237-400.

The Wild and Scenic Film Festival was conceived by a California watershed advocacy group (the South Yuba River Citizens League) in 2003 and has since flourished into the largest film festival of its kind in North America. It is held each January in Nevada City, California.

In 2004, environmental groups started asking if they could bring the festival to their community, and gradually a touring version of the Wild and Scenic Film Festival developed from outside interest. Seven years later, the tour now visits more than 110 communities nationwide.

For more information, visit the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival website.

9/10/2012