|
|
PRESS
Aspen Sojourner
Published on Aspen Sojourner Online
(http://www.aspensojourner.com/Aspen-Sojourner/Midsummer-2009/Action/)
Writer:
Scott Lasser
Photo by Dr. Bill Murray
Filmmaker Greg Poschman, at work among the endangered trees of the Roaring Fork Valley.
|
Greg Poschman has made films about John Denver and Sting, but now he wants you to know that the beetles are coming. Such is the premise of his latest movie, "A Call to Action For the Forest," which examines the pine beetle epidemic. The film, made for the nonprofit group For the Forest, is most striking for its aerial shots, which contrast the devastating browned-out, destroyed-forest approach of the insects with the vernal beauty of the Roaring Fork Valley. From the sky you see exactly what is at stake. "Doing nothing is doing something," says one of the film's commentators. Suffice it to say, Poschman wouldn't make a film about doing nothing.
Indeed, "A Call to Action" might be the title of Poschman's career. An Aspen native, for more than 20 years he has managed to make many movies about local life. He has shot films about our local rivers ("Water Stories"), our second-home neighborhoods ("Nobody's Home") and the effects of energy exploration in the West ("A Land Out of Time"). Says filmmaker Mark Harvey, who often collaborates with Poschman, "He's a local boy, and so he's grown up with all these issues." A winner of three national Emmys, he's also traveled the world to make films of national and international interest.
Perhaps predictably for an Aspen local, Poschman's love of film started with ski cinematography, but it was at the University of Colorado that he really caught the bug. Poschman was studying engineering and business (subjects that have long motivated students to find alternative careers) when he took a film class. "I found my culture there," he says. A friend invited him to tag along to Africa for a film project. Poschman spent three months working on a movie that was never made, but nevertheless realized, "This is what I want to do." He's never looked back.
A different movie about Africa earned Poschman his second Emmy, this one for directing. (He won his first in sports cinematography for "Expedition Earth," an adventure and wildlife series.) "Letters From Africa" (1997) documented the pen-pal relationship between children in Aspen and Malawi. Poschman filmed in both places on a total budget of $15,000. "We pretty much worked for free," he says. The film showed in the Telluride Film Festival and was submitted to Jackson Hole, where it was not admitted into the festival proper but relegated to the "back room." There a buyer from Disney happened upon it. It aired and an Emmy nomination followed. "We were up against multi-million dollar productions," says Poschman. "We were the real dark horse." And the winner.
Poschman's third Emmy came from a short stint working on a movie about Sting. Called to France on a moment's notice, Poschman spent a couple days following his uncooperative subject around and covering a private concert at the Paris Olympia Theater. "It was like shooting a wildlife film," Poschman says. When the gig was over, he decamped for Chamonix to ski, "the highlight of the trip." As with "Letters from Africa," the Emmy came as a total surprise.
Poschman with an aerial camera system he uses for his documentaries.
Photo by camera pilot Travis Fulton.
|
Poschman's output is eclectic and far-ranging. He recently shot a movie about street health care ("One Bridge to the Next"), following a doctor as he dispensed medicine to the indigent and homeless of Pittsburgh. He is currently at work on a film about Somali refugees who work at a Tyson Foods chicken plant in Tennessee and the conflicts they face as they vie with Southern whites, blacks and Latinos for the same jobs. Other recent efforts include a film for conceptual artist Martin Beck, one for architect Jeff Berkus and environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy's work on the Doerr-Hosier Center at the Aspen Institute, the aforementioned "River Stories" and the beetle movie, which has taken him as far north as the aptly named British Columbian town of Merritt, where local action has fended off the pine beetle.
The ecological importance of such efforts cannot be overstated. Beetle-destroyed forests are not only aesthetically unpleasing and enormous fire dangers, the dead areas emit carbon, rather than soak it up, as a healthy forest does. This project and the awareness Poschman hopes to raise locally lie at the heart of his motivation as a film maker. He says he feels the "most success when [my work] serves others, the community. I'm interested in projects that encourage the community to do good things." In early March, some 350 Aspenites crammed into the ballroom at the Hotel Jerome (filling all the seats, sitting in the aisles, leaning against the walls) to see the movie's premier. Consider awareness raised.
Poschman's altruism might seem unpractical for a family man. Even filmmakers have to eat, and freelance filmmaking from Aspen is a dicey proposition. Still, Poschman makes it work, mostly through paranoia ("I live in terror I'll never work again,") and friendship. Says Poschman, "I have a group of friends and supporters whom I love and who love me, thank God."
Laurel Garrett, who has worked with Poschman on several movies, praises his technical skill ("He's gifted at framing the tight shot") and his vision. "Greg is one of those rare filmmakers whom you want in the room when you're developing the concept, because he asks all the hard questions." Or, as colleague and friend Mark Harvey puts it, "He's a cantankerous son of a bitch." It's clear that Harvey means this as high praise. "Greg is very artistic, hard working and dedicated," he adds.
Poschman spends a fair amount of time on the road, but it seems unlikely that he'll set up a permanent home away from Aspen. He and his wife, Maureen, are parents of twin four-year-olds, and Poschman wants to raise his children as he's been raised, so that they can enjoy what he's enjoyed. "Staying in Aspen and raising my children here is my measure of success," he says. "Watching my kids learning to ski is the payoff."
Back to Press Page
|
|
)