TELLURIDE – Mountainfilm in Telluride has hired Ellen Shelton, a certified secondary school teacher and former Education Liaison for the Telluride Film Festival, as its Education Director.

During the winter and spring of 2008, Shelton introduced a pilot film-based media program to middle and high school students in the Telluride region.

This collaborative interactive multidisciplinary program effort with Mountainfilm, embraced by teachers and students alike, had exceptional results.

Based on those results, Mountainfilm is formally teaming with Shelton to expand the program regionally and beyond.

Keying on the 2008 Mountainfilm symposium theme of water, and using found footage from filmmakers whose work has screened at Mountainfilm festivals, students in the pilot program made short and compelling advocacy videos. With permission from the original filmmakers, the students distilled documentary films into what they saw as essential images and sound edits. They added their own graphics and music choices and produced highly individualized pieces that demonstrate understanding of a complex issue as well as proficiency in technical production.

Three of the best films will be part of the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival programming next year.

Given the multiplicity of critical themes and issues contained within Mountainfilm programming, past and present, Mountainfilm organizers are confident that Shelton’s program will appeal to teachers from many and varied departments, not just media or visual arts, and that her program represents precisely the kind of hands-on, issues-based learning model, incorporating both practical and theoretical cognition, that educators are actively seeking.

“The program is almost elegantly simple in its purpose, design and implementation,” said Mountainfilm Executive Director Peter Kenworthy. “It should have extremely wide-ranging appeal. There seems no reason why the program could not reach all the way across the country, bringing Mountainfilm’s message and mission into far more classrooms, in a far more meaningful way than they could ever otherwise be introduced.”

About Mountainfilm in Telluride

For 30 years, Mountainfilm has been committed to bringing ever-increasing

levels of artistic excellence to its mission of educating and inspiring audiences

about critical issues. The festival began as a venue to showcase climbing

movies. It has grown to be a major proponent of adventure, awareness and

activism. Celebrating indomitable spirit, Mountainfilm has the power to change

lives. To learn more, visit: www.mountainfilm.org. To join the conversation,

please visit our blog at www.blog.mountainfilm.org.