The Martha’s Vineyard Film Society, in collaboration with the Vineyard Conservation Society (VCS), is bringing the 12th annual Martha’s Vineyard Environmental Film Festival to the screen from May 21 through 24.
With a plethora to see, I’m touching on only three films in the lineup. The festival opens on Thursday at 6:30 pm with music and libations, rolling right into “The Shepherd and the Bear” at 7:30 pm, followed by a prerecorded Zoom conversation with director Max Keegan.
The documentary focuses on Yves, a 63-year-old shepherd in the French Pyrenees who has worked on the mountain since he was 12 or 13, learning the profession from his elders in a traditional shepherding community, the likes of which have been around for centuries. Yves faces a serious problem these days: His sheep are being killed by brown bears. (The French and Spanish governments reintroduced them into the area as part of a conservation effort after the bears were wiped out in 2004.) We follow Yves’ efforts to find a successor in a community divided between those who wish to kill the bears despite their protected status and the environmentalists who insist, “We need to learn how to live in harmony with the natural world.” We also follow a teenage boy who becomes obsessed with tracking the bears, “hunting” only with his camera. Throughout, Keegan, without taking sides, immerses us in the natural beauty of the landscape where all the different agendas unfold, deliberately leaving us without any easy answers.
“The Keeper” screens at 7:30 pm on Saturday, May 23, followed by a discussion with director Jon Bowermaster and Capt. John Lipscomb. In this moving documentary, Lipscomb takes center stage aboard his 36-foot wooden boat, fighting to protect the health of what he calls America’s “First River” — the Hudson. He calls himself a citizen watchdog and “the voice of the river.” Over 24 years as Riverkeeper’s patrol boat captain, Lipscomb has logged some 80,000 nautical miles up and down the waterway. This nonprofit environmental organization is dedicated to protecting and restoring the Hudson River, its tributaries, and the New York City drinking water watershed. Through Lipscomb, we learn about the organization’s work to protect endangered species like the Atlantic sturgeon; to advocate for removing obsolete dams, allowing fish to return to spawn in their original tributaries; and to fight pollution from power-plant cooling systems. Riverkeeper also maintains a large-scale water-quality monitoring program, testing for pathogens and contaminants, including unauthorized oil discharges and wastewater overflows. The organization has brought more than 300 successful legal actions against polluters under the Clean Water Act, securing billions in remediation funds.
Traveling with Lipscomb along the beautiful waterway, it would be easy to think Riverkeeper’s work is largely done. But for all its accomplishments, there’s so much more left to do. “The Hudson looks better, but PCBs and sewage are still a real problem,” Lipscomb says. “We’re the real keepers of whatever needs keeping … If the river could talk, what would it want me to do? It all gets very simple when you look at it that way … Just get to work.”
“The Last Dive” screens at 4 pm on Sunday, May 24, followed by a Zoom interview with director Cody Sheehy. The visually stunning and emotionally resonant documentary follows Terry Kennedy, the unlikeliest of conservationists at the start of his life, through his last dive at more than 80 years of age. Kennedy fell in love with scuba diving at 12, after admiring Jacques Cousteau’s adventures. But after disturbing experiences in the Navy during Vietnam, Kennedy rode with the Hells Angels and ran a rough bar. He also ended up spending time in jail for involvement in a violent crime.
When released, Kennedy sold his bike for a boat, naming it Erotica, and headed off to Mexico, racking up some 14,000 dives in the Sea of Cortez over the decades. Along the way, he developed a remarkable relationship with many manta rays, especially one in particular, the 22-foot Willy Wow. The manta ray would slap his wings against the hull of Kennedy’s sailboat to signal their next dive, and together they explored the ocean’s depths. Kennedy tells us, “I’ve never had any fear underwater at all. Above the surface just disappears for me. I’ve seen a lot of bad things in my life, but the best thing was meeting Willy.” Footage of the two over the 19 years they swam together is breathtaking for its beauty and in conveying the depth of their touching connection, which also led to Kennedy’s activism gaining governmental protection for the sea creatures he loved.
Sheehy intersperses archival footage with that filmed on this final voyage to fulfill Kennedy’s dying wish to see Willy one more time. On the journey, we learn how this one man’s years with manta rays, and his tireless efforts to protect them, led to impressive achievements that leave us in awe of the extraordinary intelligence of these graceful “gentle giants.”
Zada Clarke, director of advocacy at VCS, says about this year’s festival, “We strongly believe that our connection to and the protection of our environment is a deeply personal journey — that just like us, it evolves. It is not static; it tells a story. This year’s selection of films highlights just this, bringing to the screen a diverse variety of beautifully told stories. I promise these films are NOT climate change doom and gloom; they are a celebration of nature and the people advocating for its protection.”
For more information about the 12th annual M.V. Environmental Film Festival, visit mvfilmsociety.com.