FILM OUT NOW! WATCH BELOW
DOCUMENTARY FILM - Currently Screening
After over 80 days of filming, 70 days of floating and 1000 miles of rowing, our job as filmmakers continues. Post production is complete and the film is screening at a variety of film festivals throughout the CO River Basin. It is our goal to provide you with an honest examination of the Colorado River Basin through the lens of an extraordinary journey through the heart of the West. Our trip provided a platform for dialogue between diverse people and communities with varying views and connections to the Colorado River and its tributaries. Our adrenaline pumping, rapid running, adventure film will digest the complexities of the basin and provide the viewer with an assessment of what the future may hold for our nations most important resource and the communities and ecosystems that depend on it. Join us on a once in a lifetime opportunity to dive deep into the modern day great unknown.
FILM CREW / CHARACTERS
Director / Cinematographer / Character
Ben is a Graduate student at the University of Wyoming who is pursuing a MA in Geography and Water Resources. His research examines adventure film making as a method of science communication. He also works for the award winning production company, Cold Collaborative, as a producer, photographer and cinematographer. His latest film, Standing Man, can be viewed here.
Director / Cinematographer / Character
Cody M. Perry is co-founder of Rig To Flip, a media company specializing in stories about the Colorado River Basin’s land, water and people. Cody has worked with non-profits, federal land agencies, outdoor brands, Tribes and western communities to create stories inspiring stewardship, awareness and engagement. Cody comes from a ranching family in southern Arizona and lives in Grand Junction Colorado. He’s worked as an outdoor educator, a ski patroller, writer and community organizer. His passion is telling stories about the West
Patrick Kikut
Character
Patrick was raised in a small beach town in Southern California. He left in 1987, earned a BFA from the University of Colorado then went on to earn his MFA from the University of Montana. Currently he is living in Laramie, painting and teaching at the University of Wyoming. Themes in his work often come from extensive highway travel. Patrick explains, "Traveling allows me access into compelling landscapes, stories, and cultures. These things help me gain an understanding of the West and drives the work I produce in the studio." Kikut's work is included in the collections of The El Paso Art Museum, The Missoula Art Museum, and The University of Wyoming.
Character
Will Wilson’s art projects center around the transformation of customary indigenous cultural practice. He is a Diné photographer and trans-customary artist who spent his formative years living on the Navajo Nation. Wilson studied photography, sculpture, and art history at the University of New Mexico (MFA, Photography, 2002) and Oberlin College (BA, Studio Art and Art History, 1993). In 2007, Wilson won the Native American Fine Art Fellowship from the Eiteljorg Museum, in 2010 the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Sculpture, and in 2016 the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant for Photography. Wilson has held visiting professorships at the Institute of American Indian Arts (1999-2000), Oberlin College (2000-01), and the University of Arizona (2006-08). From 2009 to 2011, Wilson managed the National Vision Project, a Ford Foundation initiative focused on contemporary Indigenous art at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, and helped to coordinate the NM Arts: Temporary Installations Made for the Environment program on the Navajo Nation. Wilson is part of the Science and Arts Research Collaborative, which brings together artists and collaborators from Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 2017, Wilson received the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. Wilson is Program Head of Photography, Santa Fe Community College.
Jessica Flock
Character
Flock participated in her first whitewater river trip in the summer of 1980 through Northgate Canyon and rowed her first Class IV rapid at age 16. River running has been an integral part of her lived experience for 40 years. Since 1995, Flock has worked in a variety of roles within education to include as a substitute teacher, ESL instructor, Social Studies/Title I Reading teacher, Teaching with Primary Sources (LOC) Workshop facilitator, young adult librarian and state coordinator for Wyoming History Day. As a result, she developed hundreds of lessons which integrate issues about Water in the West. Currently, Jessica is developing K-12 lesson plans utilizing primary resources created during the expedition and planning events to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the 2nd Powell Expedition which launched on May 22, 1871.
Tom Minckley
Character
Tom Minckley is an Arizona native who is a self-admitted desertphile. He is an expert on environmental change in the arid West. He is interested in applying lessons learned by studying the history of ecological resilience of the western landscapes to conservation issues of the present.