For Immediate Release
Contact: Chloe Loos, Communications & Development Associate, cloos@watershedmg.org
Submit to the first-ever Monsoon Film Festival & Win Eco-Friendly Prizes!
Watershed Management Group is hosting a virtual film festival—and they want community submissions! Presented in advance of a special screening of the award-winning documentary, The Beaver Believers, WMG’s Monsoon Film Festival hopes to share audience stories and perspectives from the Santa Cruz Watershed and beyond.
No prior film experience is required to submit! The only requirement is that the videos are five minutes or less and are received by Monday, September 7th, 2020. The top two best-in-show winners from each category will receive prizes: first place winners can choose from our Build Your Own Basin (BYOB) or Watershed Geek Out Prize and second place winners will receive a pair of Release the Beavers camp mugs and stickers. The Film Festival audience will also choose their favorite to win our Living Lab Private Picnic prize!
Each video can be submitted to one of the following five exciting categories:
- By or For Children: For all videos made by children or created for a young audience.
- College: For films made by any college student.
- We Are One Watershed: For films that emphasize our We Are One Watershed values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Science: For shorts that emphasize the different scientific disciplines that relate to water, such as biology, ecology, etc.
- Steward In Place: For films that show what you can do on your own to make positive change for the environment.
In addition to audience shorts and the documentary, the event—to be held on Thursday, September 24th from 6pm to 9pm—will feature trivia games, a live chat feed, and an exclusive Q&A session with The Beaver Believers’ director, Sarah Koenigsberg. Tickets are $15 per person. For more information, visit Watershedmg.org/MonsoonFilmFestival
The film festival will cap off WMG’s summer fundraising in support of the Release The Beavers Campaign. WMG’s 50-year plan to restore Tucson’s heritage of flowing rivers includes strategies to bring beavers back to the Santa Cruz watershed. Beavers were exterminated from Southern Arizona in the mid-1800s and have just recently been reintroduced in the neighboring San Pedro River twenty years ago. The Bureau of Land Management is considering introducing beavers to Las Cienegas National Conservation Area. Introducing beaver into this critical riparian area will help ensure year-round flow and a healthy aquifer. To learn more, visit Watershedmg.org/Beavers