In The News

The Mountainfilm Telluride Film Festival to play in Lake Tahoe and Carson City: Proceeds to benefit Lake Tahoe and Lake Baikal, Russia environmental leadership program

March 19th, 2001

"An amazing event! It is a program that is both dazzling to the eye and richly layered with ideas about the breadth of culture and craft. It reminds us of the force of filmmaking about things that matter, worlds of exploring and conversations worth sustaining." ~ Ken Burnes, filmmaker of Civil War, Baseball and Jazz

The Tahoe-Baikal Institute (TBI) is proud to host the second annual Telluride Mountain Film Festival in Lake Tahoe on April 4th and Carson City on April 5th. The Mountain Film festival, which began in 1968, includes an exclusive collection of short films highlighting mountain environments, people, cultures, and ecology from around the world. It is a feast for the eyes, ears, brain and heart which has been dubbed America's premier adventure film festival with a twist.

"Both TBI and the Telluride Mountain film festival provide unique, exciting methods for developing tomorrow's environmental leaders", said Tony Brunello, TBI's Executive Director and a South Shore native. "TBI uses the Lake Tahoe and Lake Baikal watersheds as a hands-on laboratory to show how balanced science can inform policy decisions. The Telluride Mountain Film Festival uses film, video, and animation to take audiences to edges of the earth with topics that can be enlightening, entertaining, and sometimes even tragic."

The Telluride Mountain Film Festival will bring a collage of the best films shown at the annual Telluride Film Festival. The film series has received significant praise including being called "thrilling" and "a unique contribution to American culture" by actor and playwright Andre Gregory, "uplifting and inspiring" by George Bracksieck (founder of Rock and Ice magazine), and "one of the last great instances of mountain spirit around," by Christian Beckwith (editor of the American Alpine Journal).

All proceeds from this event will go towards benefiting the Tahoe-Baikal Institute, a non-profit organization based in South Lake Tahoe. TBI was established in 1989 to foster science and policy exchanges, and research between the Lake Tahoe (in the United States) and Lake Baikal (in the Russian Federation & Mongolia) watersheds. Since TBI's beginning, over 200 undergraduate and graduate students have "graduated" from their annual 2-month exchange to Lake Baikal and Lake Tahoe.

For more information, call (530) 543-1653 or go to the Tahoe-Baikal website at www.tahoebaikal.org. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. Advance tickets can be purchased 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at the Super 8 Motel in South Lake Tahoe.

FIRST SHOWING of the event will be Thursday, April 4, 2002 at Harrah's South Shore Room in South Lake Tahoe. Doors will open at 6:00 PM and the show will start at 7:00 PM.

The SECOND SHOWING will be on Friday, April 5, 2002 at the Carson City Community Center Theater at 851 E.William Street (HWY 50), Carson City, Nevada. Doors will open at 6:00 PM with the show starting at 7:00 PM.

Contact Tony Brunello at the Tahoe-Baikal Institute for any questions concerning TBI or the film festival.