- Grand Canyon Adventure 3D - River at Risk
- Return to Everest – Premiering in 2009
- To The Arctic – Premiering in 2010

Grand Canyon Adventure - River at Risk

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Just as Jacques Cousteau opened our eyes through television to the importance of the oceans, the MFF Educational Foundation is trying to open hearts and minds to the importance of water conservation and river restoration through the immense power of IMAX® theatres.  A mission-driven film, Grand Canyon Adventure will premiere in March 2008, just before World Water Day.  Grand Canyon Adventure follows other highly-acclaimed and successful water-related films produced by MacGillivray Freeman Films, making it the sixth effort by this award-winning company.  Produced in association with the MFF Educational Foundation, Grand Canyon Adventure will be the first of these films released in the immersive three-dimensional (3D) format, so it will play on both 3D and standard IMAX® Theatre screens, most of which are located in renowned museums and science centers in North America.  These fine theatres, with six-channel surround sound, also provide a dramatic soundtrack experience for viewers.  For Grand Canyon Adventure, we are proud to feature music by Dave Matthews Band.

MFF Educational Foundation is looking for partners and sponsors to help support this film production and its outreach programming.  Please contact us

The Film's Story:

Water – it’s the most important story of this century. As Earth’s population expands, our planet’s finite fresh water supply grows more and more scarce. Scientists say a crisis is looming. What can be done?

Set against the immense backdrop of the majestic Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon Adventure 3D will take IMAX® Theatre audiences on an exhilarating river-rafting adventure down the Colorado River in the company of a team of explorers who are committed to bringing awareness to global water issues. One of the world’s mightiest rivers, the Colorado, no longer reaches the sea. Every drop of river water is allocated to agriculture and populations along the way, many of whom don’t even realize their connection to the river. No water remains for the river’s end—the Colorado Delta—once a thriving estuary that supported the most diverse biosphere in North America. How do we balance our needs with nature’s? How do we provide enough fresh water for everyone who needs it, not only along the Colorado River, but everywhere on our planet?

The river journey is a compelling and emotional personal story for our main characters, two fathers and their 18-year old daughters who soon will be leaving home to make their own way. Our cinematic guides include the renowned Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading advocate for water conservation and river restoration, and his daughter Kick. They are joined by Wade Davis, an ethno-botanist and author who has traveled the world studying other cultures, and his daughter Tara. Shana Watahomigie, who grew up at the Canyon’s edge with her Havasupai family, is their Grand Canyon guide.

As the expedition journeys down river, audiences will learn about the challenges we face and the many opportunities that exist for conserving and restoring our watersheds. There is much to be done if future generations are going to look back at this moment, not as a time of crisis, but as the turning point, when we became true stewards of the water planet we all share. We can all play a part. Combining science and adventure with some of giant screen cinema’s most compelling imagery and locations, Grand Canyon Adventure 3D delivers a message of hope and inspiration for all people of the world.

Return to Everest – Premiering in 2009

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In 1996, MacGillivray Freeman Films filmed an amazing story that unfolded on the tallest mountain on Earth.  In May of that year, Mt. Everest claimed its deadliest season -- 16 climbers.  A horrific storm killed eight climbers on one fateful day.  The film told the story of that tragedy through the sympathetic eyes of its main characters, which included Spanish climber Araceli Segarra and Jamling Norgay, son of the legendary climber Tenzing Norgay.  The resulting 44-minute giant screen film, Everest, became the highest grossing documentary film of all time.

Eleven years later, in the spring of 2007, veterans from the 1996 expedition returned to Everest, this time with other mountaineers determined to experience and learn from the “death zone” – 8000 meters and beyond.  In an effort to increase the public’s understanding of science and its applications to everyday life, this expedition included scientists who are studying how the body copes with extreme conditions.  Ultimately, what researchers learn on Everest could make a difference to someone’s survival in real-life circumstances back home, especially for those suffering from heart and lung afflictions.  It could also explain why some climbers survived and some died in 1996.  Everest was a mountain of a movie for the giant screen industry.  It was a heartfelt story of tragedy and triumph. 

The production team will film in the Himalayas again in the spring of 2008, including attempt a helicopter aerial view of Everest’s summit, which has never been done before.  Return to Everest promises to be a story about people who challenge themselves – even put themselves at great risk – for others, because there is so much more to learn.  Return to Everest will premiere on the 11th anniversary of the classic first film, on March 4, 2009.

MFF Educational Foundation is looking for partners and sponsors to help support this film production and its outreach programming.  Please contact us

To The Arctic – Premiering in 2010

Filming for To The Arctic begins in the summer of 2008. (Click image to enlarge)

Magnificent fjords, eerie tundra, calving glaciers and crevasses, and an ocean of ice and icebergs are waiting to be explored in To The Arctic. This 40-minute documentary will be a stunning visual journey across the Arctic, a far-away place that few of us will ever experience, yet what’s happening there has global implications.  To The Arctic is an opportunity for international audiences to discover and experience the dramatic impact of climate change on an ecosystem and its unique inhabitants.  Polar bears, caribou, and millions of migrating or resident birds rely on this environment to survive as a species. Migrations, food supplies and ice cover are shifting, even disappearing.  Change is occurring so rapidly in the Arctic that many animals like the polar bear cannot adapt quickly enough.  Insects and birds are appearing in the Arctic for the first time, upsetting the cycles of life there.  In the most spectacularly visual and vivid film format that exists, To The Arctic will unravel the web of interactions that connect us to this remote part of our planet.  Global warming, climate change, environmental change – whatever you call it, is more than just a temperature rise.

MFF Educational Foundation is looking for partners and sponsors to help support this film production and its outreach programming.  Please contact us