Saving the Rainbow Mountains: Advocacy and Preservation in Film

By Ford Melillo

Preserving the Rainbow Mountains by Amanda Tuccillo with a voice over by Jerry Camacho is an urgent film exploring the rich history and powerful threats endangering China’s Rainbow Mountains in Zhangye Danxia National Geological Park. It does a fantastic job of balancing the wonder of the space with contemporary issues involving ecological preservation, climate change, and human activity, while also providing potential actions for viewers to advocate for ecological preservation. However, the film slightly suffers from time constraints as there is much ground to cover, making it difficult to balance wonder, threat, and a call to action in two minutes. As a result, many concepts are introduced, but unable to be fully fleshed out. To improve this, perhaps a list of relevant sites and organizations that can further educate viewers or allow their involvement with advocacy could bookend the discussion. 

The film captures the contemporary conversation surrounding preservation and climate change advocacy well, and it creates an effective call to action. Despite the constraints it faces, it does its best and I am happy to give it 4 out of 5 stars. 

Ford Melillo is a marketing intern at CMRubinWorld and Stanford undergrad studying English with a Creative Writing focus.

Author: C. M. Rubin

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