Mission

The Range of Light Film Festival will take place in Yosemite Valley amid the wonders of the park in winter. As an annual celebration of light, motion, character, conservation, community, and adventure, the festival’s mission is to explore through visual storytelling, music and live conversation humankind’s complex relationship with the Earth’s wild places, to foster creativity, and to inspire direct engagement with the natural world.

2014 Theme: The theme for the inaugural Range of Light Film Festival is 150 Years of Yosemite. In June 2014 we will celebrate the establishment of Yosemite as a protected area, the genesis of the national park idea and our park as the birthplace of international land conservation. On June 30, 1864, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed an unprecedented bill, the Yosemite Grant, which set aside the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley as the nation’s first protected areas. The seed of an idea was planted – that our nation’s most magnificent and sacred natural spaces should be preserved for everyone and all time. Indeed, the national park movement grew nationally and internationally from President Lincoln’s bold action, and today helps define who we are as Americans.

The history and many tales about Yosemite are often overshadowed by the park’s world famous and iconic features such as Half Dome, El Capitan and Yosemite Falls. The film festival will display how filmmakers, artists and storytellers have been inspired and used the park as a backdrop for their creative and varied interpretations. Audience members will leave the festival with a greater appreciation for Yosemite, having viewed it in new and surprising ways, and a renewed sense for the importance of conservation, maintaining public lands, and preserving natural resources for future generations.

Venue: The film festival will take place February 27 through March 2, 2014, in the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center’s state-of-the-art digital theater and auditorium.