Event

Wrenched @ SLIFF

From Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" to Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," American literature has been in the activist vanguard. Edward Abbey carried on that tradition through memoirs like "Desert Solitaire" and novels like "The Monkey Wrench Gang," which chronicled and decried the degradation of the American Southwest. "Wrenched" explores how Abbey's anarchistic spirit and riotous novels influenced the nascent environmental movement of the 1970s and continue to resonate today. The writer's friends became the original eco-warriors, and these early activists -- exemplified by EarthFirst! -- pioneered "monkeywrenching," taking direct action and employing civil disobedience in defense of wilderness. Abbey's message now lives on in young activists who use his books as a source of inspiration. That new generation is personified in the film by Tim DeChristopher, who singlehandedly stopped the sale of 100,000-plus acres of public-trust lands in southeastern Utah and went to federal prison for his actions. Following in Abbey's footsteps, "Wrenched" asks how far we are willing go in defense of wilderness.