The New Frontier: Sustainable Ranching in the American West

Co-Directors: C. Melinda Levin & Irene J. Klaver
Co-Producers: Irene J. Klaver & C. Melinda Levin
Category: Environment
Total Running Time: 27 min.
Release Date: 2010
website: http://newfrontierfilm.com

Synopsis

In the face of growing population and increasing development and residential sub-divisions, three ranchers—from Texas, Colorado and New Mexico—demonstrate how they are integrating their ranching into their respective ecosystems, taking care to sustain and maintain the watershed, wildlife migration and the land, while supporting their respective livelihoods.

This film depicts a classic American conceit—the American West and the cowboys and ranchers who settled there—and brings it into 21st century thinking, in which the characters evince an environmentalist’s passion for sustainability and conservation.

Trailer

About the Filmmakers

MELINDA LEVIN’s films emphasize environmental, cultural, political and indigenous issues. She was an executive producer on The Global Rivers Project, which premiered in Beijing, China, in 2008, and is head executive producer and director of a new film entitled River Planet, which includes footage from major rivers including the Amazon, Danube, Ganges, Los Angeles, Mekong and Rio Grande. Another recent documentary, The Maya Dreams of Chan Kom: Tourism and Change in the Yucatan, was shot on location in Chan Kom, Mexico, in a traditional agricultural village on the Yucatan Peninsula. Levin has screened her work at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Human Rights in a Changing Society Conference, Acco, Israel; The American Anthropological Association; The Society for Applied Anthropology Conference, The Society of Film and Media Studies; and multiple domestic and international festivals and PBS stations in the United States. She co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Film and Video on film and anthropology and co-authored a book on film editing titled Post: The Theory and Techniques of Digital Motion Picture Editing. Levin is president of the University Film and Video Foundation, serves as chair of the Media Panel for the Texas Commission on the Arts and is associate professor of documentary film at the University of North Texas.

DR. IRENE J. KLAVER is director of the Philosophy of Water Project and associate professor in philosophy at the University of North Texas. With an MA in political theory (Cum Laude) from the University of Amsterdam, Klaver was Fulbright Scholar in philosophy at State University of New York--Stony Brook and a Vera Liszt Fellow at the New School of Social Research in New York City. Her research and teaching focus on social-political and cultural dimensions of water. She has published and lectured widely on the topic, is co-editor of the UNESCO book Water, Cultural Diversity & Global Environmental Change: Emerging Trends, Sustainable Futures (Springer, 2011), and editor of Water and Culture, a volume in The History of Water and Civilization Project UNESCO book series of the International History of Water Association. A firm believer in the importance of visual culture, Klaver has worked on various water documentary films. She was research consultant on The Global Rivers Project, which premiered in Beijing, China (2008), and River Planet (2011). She was co-director/producer with Melinda Levin of the Rio Grande and Mekong sections of the films. Other imaging projects include a photo essay on local water infrastructure with information scientist/filmmaker Brian O’Connor, selected for the Smithsonian Photography Initiative. Klaver is UNESCO Water and Cultural Diversity Advisor and Co-Director of the International Association for Environmental Philosophy.