Weekend roundup: Movies on a mountain in Mendham

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Anyone can show a bunch of green movies. But Friday’s Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival really had the proper spirit, showing its movies on a wooded hilltop that once was home to the Boy Scouts of America. If you missed the hay wagon either way, it was a long and buggy hike up and down the Schiff Nature Preserve in Mendham.

woodbadge lodge
Green film festival at Woodbadge Lodge, atop the Schiff Nature Preserve in Mendham. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

The movie lodge was packed, and so we only caught pieces of films. Particularly moving was “Papa Tortuga,” a documentary about Fernando Manzano, a Mexican who devotes himself to saving Tortuga Lora sea turtles from extinction.

“GrowTown Motown,” a documentary about Morristown’s community garden that was screened last year at our MG Film Fest, was reprised at the Schiff event. An expanded version will be shown this Wednesday night at Morristown’s Unitarian Fellowship; a discussion will follow.

Friday was our first visit to Schiff, nearly 500 acres that once included the east coast’s largest movie studio, a gift from artist Norman Rockwell and IBM’s Thomas Watson. We’ll place the preserve on our cross-country skiing list for next winter.

volunteers at schiff preserve
We hitched a ride to the green movie festival with these volunteers at the Schiff Nature Preserve in Mendham. Alex Warcola, left, is a high school student in Mendham. Dan Mayer is summer intern from Paul Smith's College in the Adirondacks. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

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