Film festival to benefit Wausau-Marathon County Park Foundation on April 22

Looking for a way to celebrate Earth Day while supporting local recreation? The Wausau Marathon County Parks and Recreational Foundation is hosting its first-ever film festival at the Rib Mountain chalet. The inaugural fundraiser will feature an evening of short, outdoor-focused documentaries, with all proceeds going toward enhancing parks and green spaces throughout the county.

“It’s a good way for people to give back to the environment and have a lot of fun,” said Randy Falstad, foundation board member. “I think it’s gonna be a really fun night and they’re gonna see some very entertaining films.”

The film festival is hosted at Granite Peak’s Sundance Chalet from 5:30-9 p.m. on Wednesday, April 22. There will be door prizes, raffles and appetizers. Drinks are available for purchase. Proceeds benefit the park foundation, a nonprofit that supports a variety of outdoor improvements and programming in the area.

“We do a lot for the outdoors in Wausau and Marathon County, trying to make the outdoors better,” Falstad said. “We’ve donated to the River Life Park, to the Marathon County Park, the train there, Athletic Park, Sylvan Hills Park, the Great Pinery Waterway ... We are a fundraising group to help make Marathon County better. Tax money can’t do everything, and a lot of these things would never get done if people’s taxes had to pay for it. So we go out and raise money to support the outdoors.”

To put on the event, the park foundation partnered with Wild and Scenic, an organization that helps program nature film festivals. Park foundation board members reviewed 54 films and selected eight to play at the festival.

“We picked out quite a variety of films, they range from wildlife to restoration of the environment to outdoor sports like paddling of the river,” Falstad said.

The films playing at the festival are:

• “Portrait of a Ranger” (4 min.) Constance Mwandaa, the first female ranger at Kenya’s Kasigau Corridor, has inspired a growing team of women rangers. Her groundbreaking role highlights the power of women in conservation.
• “Polar Bear Country” (16 min.) Churchill, Manitoba’s most famous visitor is the Polar Bear. Every year, hundreds of bears gather on the shoreline surrounding Churchill, awaiting the sea ice that forms on Hudson Bay during winter. Once it forms, they’ll use it as a platform from which to hunt seals, but until then, they wait on the coast creating a fascinating interaction between the residents of Churchill and the world’s largest land carnivore.
• “The Captain and the Super Clams” (16 min.) Along the Indian River of Central Florida, a tale of destruction and redemption unfolds. Dr. Todd Osborne and Captain Blair Wiggins pull together a group of local gardeners and embark on a mission to revive the lagoon’s vitality by restoring its clam population, one shell at a time.

• “Return to Spur Lake” (11 min.) There’s always been only a few special places in the world where wild rice (known as manoomin to the Ojibwe people), grows. Which made it troubling when manoomin stopped growing in the early 2000s at Spur Lake, a 113-acre lake in Oneida County, Wisconsin. A group of conservation partners have come together to bring wild rice back to Spur Lake because of its environmental and cultural importance.
• “Friends of Frogpool Lane” (7 min.) Follow a group of crossing guards as they help frogs and salamanders navigate a busy road through a rainy spring night, so these driven amphibians can arrive safely to the unique wetland.
• “River Cowboys” (11 min.) Showcases the stunning landscapes of the internationally recognized Red River Gorge and Kentucky’s Red River. It highlights an ongoing environmental challenge: the removal of scores of discarded tires and trash from Red River.
• “The Bird in my Backyard” (20 min.) In an urban backyard on Canada’s west coast, a window salesman has created a living laboratory for investigating hummingbird behavior. The film follows citizen scientist Eric Pittman as he documents the journeys of two female Anna’s hummingbirds as they attempt to raise their young in his urban garden.
• “Mother River” (6 min.) After pursuing career goals on the East Coast, Devin realized that life was not for her. Her childhood roots in paddling and connecting to nature brought her to Minnesota where she would pursue her dream to become the first black female to kayak the entire Mississippi river. The challenges continue as Devin listens to the river and follows her guidance.

Tickets to the festival are $30 per person or $55 per couple. Tickets can be purchased in advance at Eventbrite.com.