Wild & Scenic Film Festival: Films for Pride Month 2023

With June being Pride Month, we wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few of the incredible Wild & Scenic Film Festival official selections that explore LGBTQIA+ subjects and issues in their films.

Wild & Scenic focuses on storytelling and amplifying voices that have been systematically marginalized. Films can serve as a potent tool to educate and inspire activism and growth, and the Wild & Scenic Film Festival is committed to offering programming that addresses environmental injustice, racism, and inequity as well as lack of representation in the outdoors and environmental movements.

One of the films we are featuring is 2023 Official Selection, Franklin, a feature-length documentary retracing Australia’s most significant environmental win to save the remote Franklin River from being dammed by a hydroelectric project in the 1980s. The story is told through the eyes of Oliver Cassidy, a transgender environmentalist and 8th generation Tasmanian, whose late father Mike was a key activist in the campaign.

We’re proud to be donating 25% of all ticket sales to What’s Up Wellness who support youth in Nevada County. All youth need to feel and be safe at school in order to learn. Gender & Sexuality Alliances (GSAs) and LGBTQIA+ Affinity Spaces all make a critical, lifesaving difference in the school experiences of LGBTQIA+ students. Given LGBTQIA+ youths’ persistently disproportionate risk for harassment, feeling unsafe at school, substance abuse, and suicide, safety is a critical baseline from which all subsequent work must follow. The What’s Up Wellness Spectrum Project is working alongside LGBTQIA+ students and school staff to create more safe and affirming spaces for queer youth in Western Nevada County Schools.