RESTORING THE SPIRIT OF PLACE  -  Wildlife Passages

In 2022 Little Fluffy Clouds was awarded a LAB-FELLOWSHIP residency by the International Wildlife Film Festival of Missoula, MT. Jerry van de Beek, our director/ECD teamed up with fellow directors, Lara Tomov of Stories for Action and filmmaker, Nick Stone Schearer to make a short documentary in just 4 days. Restoring the Spirit of Place, a 12-minute film, was the incredible result.

Spirit of Place tells the story of wildlife passages placed alongside Highway 93 which runs through the Flathead Reservation, and the work of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai (CSKT) tribes to support coexistence along human and wildlife corridors. The CSKT pushed for a “context-sensitive design of the expansion of Highway 93” to take into account the surrounding mountains, plains, hills, forests, valleys and sky. This includes the paths of waters, glaciers, winds, plants, animals and native people.

First shown at the Roxy cinema in Missoula, the host and co-sponsor of IWFF, Spirit of Place has now begun its journey on the nature documentary circuit of film festivals. The short film doc world is tough to navigate. There are so many good stories to be told and few venues in which to see them. So we are encouraged and deeply grateful to them and to the Boulder Environmental / Nature / Outdoors Film Festival, the Wild Earth Oceania Film Festival in Sydney and the Green Film Festival of San Francisco for providing a platform to help spread the message of positivity that radiates from this short doc and the inspiring actions of the CKST to be forceful allies of nature and stewards of our planet.

Credits

• Directed by:
• Jerry van de Beek
• .
• Lara Tomov
• .
• Nick Stone Schearer
• Featuring:
• Kari Eneas
• .
• Marcel Huijser
• .
• Payton Adams
• IWFF Producer:
• Taylor lennox
• Field Producer:
• Ryan Graham-Laughlin
• Additional Footage:
• Colin Ruggiero