Shaped by Ice continues its festival run and will screen February 20-22, 2026, at the 20th annual Colorado Environmental Film Festival in Golden, Colorado.

This was the third festival selection for this 5-minute long film about glaciologist Mauri Pelto and his daughter, Jill, who translates their scientific findings into paintings that tell a data story through graphs overlayed onto glacial landscapes.

The film will also screen at the Backcountry Film Festival, with screenings cities across the US and Canada. It premiered as a finalist at the Bloomberg-Greendocs festival at the Seattle Art Museum in July, 2025.

During the summer of 2025 I joined the Pelto’s and their posse on Mt. Baker where we spent a day huddled in our tents trying to stay dry. The weather cleared the next day allow us to ascend on the glaciated shoulder of the mountain to continue the grim work of documenting the accelerating loss of ice. The footage I shot will ultimately become part of a long-term project I’m doing to document the final 7 years of the 50-year project that Mauri launched in the early 80s. I’m planning to shoot every year leading up to the end of the study. One of the film’s dramatic questions will be whether Mauri’s body will hold up long enough to allow him to reach his goal. And mine, for that matter! Luckily for me, I’ve got a crew much younger than I am who can keep shooting even if I have to stay back in the edit bay. But my goal is go shoot most of this myself. As always, I’m happiest with a camera in my hand, working on small projects that can make a big impact.