Montana State scientist helps bring Yellowstone to screen in film premiering on Earth Day

BOZEMAN - A film connecting Yellowstone National Park's past and present through an immersive visual and musical journey will premiere at 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 22, in the Hager Auditorium at the Museum of the Rockies. The event is free and open to the public.

"Yellowstone Wild Through Time," which in January received several awards of merit from the Cannes Film Festival in the Best Nature/Wildlife Film category, was created by independent filmmaker Carol Amore with scientific guidance from Roland Hatzenpichler, director of Montana State University's Thermal Biology Institute and associate professor in MSU's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the College of Letters and Science.

The unnarrated documentary tells Yellowstone's story through images displayed against a musical soundtrack to convey the drama happening on screen. The visual tour explores many of the park's facets, including its ecosystems, weather, wildlife and predator-prey interactions. Wishing to thoroughly depict the wonders of the nation's first national park for America's 250th birthday, Amore also chose to highlight Yellowstone's geothermal features, including erupting geysers, colorful hot springs and thermal formations created by ancient and contemporary microbes. To ensure the film's scientific integrity, Amore sought Hatzenpichler's advisement.

"Roland and I are collaborating to make science interesting for people, even if they don't speak English, which are half of the people who visit Yellowstone," Amore said. "We wanted to make something that was inspiring and uplifting and makes people curious."

The Thermal Biology Institute is made up of a multidisciplinary team of MSU scientists, including chemists and microbiologists, focused on the unique thermal environments in Yellowstone National Park. It is the microbes and extremophiles living in many of the park's features that are responsible for the beautiful and varied colors of the hot springs. TBI's long-term goal is to understand how those organisms respond and adapt to the unique physical and chemical features of geothermal environments.

TBI engages in K-12 outreach, as well as a summer continuing education course for science teachers and National Science Foundation-funded education efforts for MSU graduate and undergraduate students. The institute also works with Yellowstone Forever, the nonprofit arm of Yellowstone National Park, to develop outreach resources.

Hatzenpichler said he hopes his work on "Yellowstone Wild Through Time," as well as on a planned sequel to the film that will focus even more closely on the park's geothermal features, will strengthen TBI's longstanding relationship with the National Park Service. For example, after the institute was founded in 1999, TBI developed several poster exhibits to educate visitors about the park's thermal features and their microscopic inhabitants.

"The exhibits haven't been updated in a while, and while the information on them is still true, we now know a lot more about the geothermal features from the geology side as well as the biology side of hot springs," he said. "We hope this will be a great opportunity to continue working with the park and maybe update some of these poster exhibits, which are seen by (nearly) 5 million visitors annually."

After the film screening, Amore will give a presentation about the making of the film, and Hatzenpichler will talk about the scientific and societal significance of some of the research taking place in the park. He will discuss his research group's discovery of two new microbes living in Yellowstone's thermal features that one day could contribute to the development of methods to mitigate climate change and provide insight into potential life elsewhere in our solar system.

He also will tell of some other ventures that have arisen from MSU's work in Yellowstone, including that of a former MSU graduate student who, while studying heat-tolerant fungi in the park, discovered that they are edible and nutritious. The student went on to found Nature's Fynd, a company that uses the fungi to create a wide range of meat and dairy alternatives that are sold in stores nationwide. The National Park Service receives a percentage of the company's proceeds.

To reserve a seat for the free screening, register online at https://bit.ly/4bVYpGN.