TAOS MILAGRO ROTARY PRESENTS MOUNTAINFILM IN TAOS
WITHOUT CONTEXT it would seem preposterous that a service organization (Taos Rotary) could host a film festival. There’s only so much goodwill can do to get people to star in a short film. There’s only so much volunteering at homeless shelters or volunteering to be the bingo announcer for the terminally ill at a hospice care can do to get directors the funds to properly shoot their short films. The Taos Milagro Rotary Club (TMRC) is using the Mountainfilm festival as a vehicle for their major fundraiser to raise funds for youth programs, which reach nearly 1500 students in Taos, such as prospective baller and shot caller, Abdul Khweis, who needs help with tuition at Columbia University to play basketball.
The 6’2” former Taos tiger shooting guard has got some game. He’s got a comfortable handle in traffic and dishes the ball to wide-open players that are left open from all the havoc he imposes on the defense. He knows how to use his feet whenever he spins to get away from a defender for an easy layup. He can do those rather technical hop steps, without traveling, to find space in between defenders for a jump shot. His shooting form is a little awkward for an undersized guard but perhaps he’ll manage to get away with it at the next level.
Normally, the TMRC does the “Taos Chile Challenge,” to reach their goal of $30,000 for scholarships and literacy programs. New Mexico ranks 49th in the nation when it comes to literacy rates according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. From 2020-2021 they’ve done these tangible things: supported the launch of two new Little Free Library locations, one at Ziggy’s, and one at Arroyo Seco Live; distributed dictionaries to every 3rd-grade student in Taos County; provided meals to Taos Men’s Shelter twice a month; advanced literacy through mentoring via a $17,500 Taos Community Foundation Grant. TMRC is serious about this “mission critical” event.
This time around, in response to Covid and the safety measures required in dealing with it, they’ve opted for this virtual film festival starting on Nov. 11 and ending after Nov. 14. Tickets for the virtual film festival are $15, if you plan to watch with friends and family, consider donating a little extra.
The Mountainfilm festival got its start in 1979 in Telluride, where the “high-alpine valley has attracted a wild assortment of inhabitants. Indian chiefs and tribes, Spanish explorers, prospectors, gunslingers, prostitutes, union radicals, hippies, rock and ice climbers, and ski resort boomers.” Doesn’t it remind you of a town along the enchanted circle that rhymes with Cows?
As one of the longest-running film festivals they’ve billed the event as a “selection of culturally rich, adventure-packed and incredibly inspiring documentary films.” To their credit, there are several themes and threads running throughout the short films. Diversity is definitely among them. The great beauty of the outdoors is another. Indomitable spirits and the ability to transcend the harsh realities of social inequality and injustice are another.
There are other serendipitous underlying themes that I will divulge for you, without entirely stripping the magic out of all this wonderful content, through a series of vignettes. Let’s talk about water. Oceans are scary. All that disorienting vastness and those terrible tempestuous waves that can even hurl sea creatures up and out of the surface. I don’t even want to think about the Mariana trench and living organisms that may be even uglier than an anglerfish. Then again, there’s something mesmerizing about estuaries and mangroves (never mind the potent sulfurous rotten egg smell they produce). From an overhead perspective, the way the brackish water cuts through all that mass of green, it has the shape of a sinusoidal waveform. It’s just an undulating blue ribbon leading out to the ocean. Somewhere in the freshwater ecosystem of Bimini, on a wooden platform, there’s a bronze bust of Martin Luther King Jr. developing a patina. A charismatic octogenarian named Ansil Saunders shares a psalm with us that he had delivered unto MLK Jr. four days before he’d be assassinated: “Just look around and see God in everything. His name of love is written in every tiny raindrop. His name of wonder crowns the mountain peak. Swirls across the seas. Who else could stretch rivers like silver ribbons across the continents, or fill the darkest recess of the ocean with life? Only God could create the morning sunrise that bursts the horizon in a blaze of glory
... Only God could create a moon which represents equality because it equalizes the waters of the earth ... Every living thing reaches for God. The smallest green grass, the tallest redwood. Look around you and touch your brother, kiss your sister, and then behold the wonderful works of God. The boats, psalms, and computers, were made by fools like me, but only God can blossom the cherry tree. Only God can give life to you and me. Amen.”
Many hours to the west of Bimini, in the southern part of Mexico City, you will find the last remnants of a vast water transport system in the Xochimilco canals. While not as picturesque as the waters of that Caribbean island, there’s the interesting imagery of murky waterways abutting homes. The protagonist of this story is a fairly cognizant and self-aware elevenyear-old named Jèsús Gonzalez Galicia. This Lacostewearing kid with an Adventure Time backpack on his back paddles through the canal with his little sister on the way to school. Along the way we discover corruption (water doesn’t quite reach the canals somehow), pollution (depleted aquifers and locals dumping waste into the canals), and acts of violence (several stories of kidnappings). In spite of all this, what sticks with us is not the social malaise but the overwhelmingly wholesome character of Jèsús. Halfway down the canal he makes sure to splash a yapping fur-ball of dog, as any sensible person should. Before making it to school, he takes time to dance with his little sister. Then he leaves us with this quote, which the translation doesn’t do enough justice: “I think it’s beautiful that I was born, because God [diosito] sent me down to my parents because they needed a lot of help and they needed love from me, and friendship for people, because some are lonely, and then I feel sad and that’s why I think God sent me.”
‘ONLY GOD COULD CREATE A MOON WHICH REPRESENTS EQUALITY BECAUSE IT
EQUALIZES THE WATERS OF THE EARTH’