What do local funk band 20 Grand, actor Jason Momoa and fashion designer Jeff Garner have in common?
They are all connected through Winterland Impact Festival, a four-day film, music and storytelling event focused on creating conversations about climate change that will be held in Whitefish Sept. 26-29.
“Everything at this festival is storytelling,” said Anderson Rosenthal, founder of Project Winterland, a nonprofit dedicated to climate solutions and equity with a focus on Montana-specific challenges. “The hope is people will learn from these documentaries, be engaged with the speakers and sessions and learn that collectively, even small acts of change matter.”
Rosenthal describes the festival as a SXSW-style “conglomeration” festival. It’s a film festival featuring dozens of films and several panels with directors and producers; it’s a music festival that will include an exclusive first live performance of a new single by Grammy Award-winning artist Alya; it’s a solutions-focused conference with 17 climate resiliency speakers presenting TED-style talks.
“The biggest challenge with this event is that people understand a film festival, they understand a music festival and they understand a conference. This combined format is a whole different beast. This is new, and it’s the first of its kind in Montana,” Rosenthal said. “It’s really a next-generation festival. It’s a greater good festival.”
Rosenthal is a fourth-generation Flathead Valley resident who worked in L.A. as a film producer and writer before beginning to shift her career focus towards activism after finding herself losing sleep over existential crises, specifically the creeping impact of climate change.
She moved back to the Flathead Valley in 2016 and launched Project Winterland with the goal of convening a series of summits and festivals to gather business executives, nonprofit leaders, entrepreneurs, celebrities and local individuals for conversations around climate disruption.
While the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to rolling out the events, Rosenthal launched the first phase in Whitefish this spring with the inaugural Winterland Solutionist Summit, a one-day accelerator event around local climate resiliency solutions.
Now it’s on to phase two.
While all aspects of the festival are geared towards sparking conversations about climate resiliency and inclusivity, Rosenthal acknowledges that throwing around the phrase “climate change” is a divisive way to market an event, especially in a state as conservative as Montana. The design of an event like this, anchored in experience and a little bit of celebrity, is to draw people in who “aren’t part of the choir.”
“Films, fun and music are gateway drug to someone getting inside and then stumbling into a climate talk or climate film,” Rosenthal said. “If they’re a fencesitter, that’s that kind of person we really want to come and engage with us and ask the hard questions. Storytelling has the power to open your mind to new things, open your heart to new ways of looking at our shared future and humanity amid these crises.”
Across the four days and six venues in Whitefish, the festival will screen 44 films, host six concerts and more than a dozen keynote speakers.
While the entire lineup is stacked with importance there are some key standouts.
On the music scene, acts include the Halladay & Rob Quist Trio debuting Rob’s new song “Love Letter to Montana,” funk favorite 20 Grand, Salish and Blackfeet artist Foreshadow and roots singer Sterling Drake. Grammy Award winning singer Alya will be performing her new single “Hope” for the first time in front of a live audience.
The slate of 44 films includes 10 selections centered around Indigenous stories. “Bring Them Home,” the Lily Gladstone-narrated film about the Blackfeet Nation’s efforts to return free-roaming bison to their ancestral land will be shown followed by a panel with the film’s directors.
The award-winning documentary “Common Ground” focuses on the dark web of money and politics that runs throughout the global food system and highlights farmers who are using regenerative agriculture to improve soil health. The film is narrated by Laura Dern and features Jason Momoa, Donald Glover, Woody Harrelson as well as numerous scientists and activists. This film will not have a panel, but Rosenthal says the film provides one of the most powerful voices for climate action.
Other films on deck include “Coldiron and the Cabinets,” about a war veteran who discovers world-class ice climbing in northwest Montana, “Finding Hetch Hetchy,” about the Yosemite Valley reservoir, and “Let Them Be Naked,” where designer Jeff Garner explores the impact of the high fashion industry on the planet. The latter film inspired Rosenthal and the event team to add a catwalk for a fashion of sustainable couture outfits.
The festival’s additional experiences include a climate meme competition, hosted by Josh Elliott and Aaron White of the Climate Karen podcast, the chance to experience sound bathing, and subject matter expert talks.
“We’re bringing all these disparate parts together for people to experience, and what we’re really trying to do is scale the courage to act,” Rosenthal said. “If we can scale the number of people willing to engage with these stories, then we can scale the amount of action we take towards solutions.”
To learn more about the Winterland Impact Festival or buy tickets visit https://projectwinterland.org/winterland-impact-festival.