The Rocky Mountain Wildlife Film Festival, featuring dozens of award-winning documentaries, will debut May 20-22 and run again on May 27-29 at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge in Commerce City.The first film festival of its kind in Colorado , the event will open Friday, May 20, at 6 p.m. with the screening of “Cloud: Challenge of the Stallions” and a talk by the producer and director, Ginger Kathrens. An award-winning filmmaker for the past 35 years, Kathrens is also executive director of The Cloud Foundation, a Colorado-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of wild horses on public lands.
The festival will continue throughout the weekend, with approximately 40 to 50 film showings and talks by guest filmmakers and conservationists. The film schedule is divided into two-hour film series, running from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, and Sunday, May 22. The film schedule (but not the speakers) will repeat the following weekend at the same times on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Short and feature wildlife films will represent multiple countries from across the globe, making this event an international film festival. All films are superb documentaries providing education and entertainment. A portion of the proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the Friends of the Front Range Wildlife Refuges, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to raising funds in support of projects and programs at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal and Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuges.
Tickets to each two-hour series cost $8 for adults and $5 for seniors, students and military with ID. A pass to attend the entire festival costs $75 for each weekend. Tickets can be purchased through the Friends of the Front Range Wildlife Refuges online at http://ffrwr.org/nature-shop/film-festival/ and a full listing of the film offerings can be viewed here as well.
All film showings, and opportunities to reserve space on guided tours to view Refuge wildlife throughout the weekend, will take place at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge new Visitor Center . The Refuge is located at 6550 Gateway Road , just north of Dick’s Sporting Goods Park at Prairie Parkway and Gateway Road and east of Quebec Street .
The event is being sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Film Festival, an international traveling event that features some of the finest conservation, natural history and wildlife films in the world.
