2026 Film Jury
The 2026 Film Jury brings a rich and varied experience in film, environmental conservation, and activism. The Jury watches a shortlist of films selected by the Festival Director and Lead Programmer to decide upon the following awards: Best of Festival, Best in Theme, Spirit of Activism, Most Inspiring Adventure Film, Best Short, Jury Awards, and Honorable Mentions.
Many thanks to our talented and prestigious Jury for the long hours they spent selecting the 2026 award-winning films!
Aaron Zettler-Mann
Aaron Zettler-Mann grew up swimming and playing in the creeks and rivers near his coastal home in a small town in Humboldt County. A Geographer at heart, he has completed three degrees in Geography: a BA at the University of Colorado at Boulder, an MA at the University of Denver, and a PhD at the University of Oregon. His academic training and research are in fluvial geomorphology and remote sensing. He has been involved in river research projects across the western US and internationally. Aaron’s drive to protect and improve the health of the West’s watersheds led him to SYRCL. He works closely with the community, government, and private entities and the SYRCL team on restoration, education, inspiration and advocacy efforts across the Yuba River watershed. Aaron can be outdoors playing on the water with his wife when not working. Whitewater kayaking and rafting, skiing, surfing, and mountain biking keep Aaron busy year-round.
Charlie Turnbull
J. English Cook, Ph.D.
English is a curator, film programmer, and author with over fifteen years of experience in the arts and museum professions. Her research engages historical intersections among architecture, cinema, and urban theory as well as contemporary film and the environmental humanities. Cook was the 2021-22 Vilcek Curatorial Fellow and a 2022-23 research assistant at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and she has held previous positions at the Architecture Film Festival London, the Grey Art Museum, NYU, MoMA, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and the Venice Architecture Biennale. Her writing has appeared in various journals, anthologies, and exhibition catalogues, and she is currently at work as the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Climate Film Festival (CFF) NYC.
Joanna Croston
Joanna has climbed many of the classic 11,000 ft summits in the Canadian rockies and is an avid backcountry skier having toured throughout North America, The Alps, Japan, Kashmir and the Indian Himalaya. She is a voracious reader of mountain literature and a die-hard film enthusiast. Her writing has appeared in Gripped, The Canadian Alpine Journal, The Canadian Rockies Annual, Mountain Life, Alpinist and Waymaking, an award winning collection of women’s adventure writing published in Autumn 2018. Her new book Mountaineering Women was released in September 2025.
Joanne Parsont
Joanne Parsont is the Director of Strategy at the EMA Foundation, supporting a dynamic impact network of small social impact organizations and an internal team of rising young professionals. She also oversees the development and management of EMA’s storytelling and learning resources platform, rhizōma. For three decades, Joanne has worked as a media education specialist and film festival programmer specializing in children’s and documentary films, working with dozens of festivals and film arts organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area and nationwide. She served as the Director of Education at both the San Francisco Film Society (now SFFILM) and the California Film Institute, where, she designed and managed film education programs that served more than 15,000 K-college students and teachers each year and developed a suite of online educational resources for educators and independent filmmakers. She is currently co-President of the Board of BAVC Media in San Francisco and previously served on the Board of the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE).
