The Mountainfilm festival in Telluride, Colorado, is one of the premier environmental film festivals in the country; thousands of people attend each spring. This year’s theme was “The New Normal” and the festival featured films on climate change, food security, outdoor adventures, and wildlife, and presentations by leading thinkers such as environmentalist and author Paul Hawken.

We celebrated the world premiere of the short film “Keepers of the Future” at the festival May 26. “Keepers” is a documentary by award-winning filmmaker Avi Lewis about our partners and the social movement they have built in El Salvador. Over the course of the weekend the film was screened four times and seen by about 1,000 people.

Here’s a special preview and synopsis of the documentary:

In Keepers of the Future, [Avi Lewis] profiles a community organization that demonstrates how “deep local democracy” can help even a poor population build environmental, economic, and political resilience. Recovering from the devastation of the Salvadoran Civil War, the Lower Lempa La Coordinadora, a farmers’ cooperative, has restored degraded ecosystems, diversified small-scale agriculture to build local self-sufficiency, and fostered political resistance against national initiatives to “develop” the region by establishing a wage-based economy of tourism and large-scale sugar and cotton farming.

The film was so well received that we are entering it in other festivals in the hopes that even more people will be moved by the powerful lessons that our partners in El Salvador can teach.

We want as many people as possible to see this incredible documentary. If you want us to enter the film in a festival in your town or city, email me at karolo[at]ecoviva[dot]org.

Mountainfilm also has a touring version of the festival. The festival and “Keepers of the Future” might be showing at a theater near you! Or you can contact them to inquire about their process for hosting a screening.