Colorado River documentary featuring Vail Valley teacher screened at Riverwalk Theater 

Extra chairs were needed at the Riverwalk Theater on Tuesday night as the award winning film on the water wars over the Colorado River took to the big screen in Edwards. 

“The River,” a feature-length documentary, captures the tales of locals from the seven basin states whose lives have been up-ended by the shrinking of the Colorado River. The film premiered at the Boulder International Film Festival in April, and is now touring through basin states before potentially making it in front of the eyes of Washington D.C. lawmakers. The film’s release is timely, as a post-2026 operation agreement looms over the basin states’ negotiations. 

The event was spearheaded by a local nonprofit, the Eagle River Coalition, as well as the grant program, the Eagle River Fund. The two groups play a role in supporting the ecological health of the Eagle River, which contributes 3% of flows going into the Colorado River. 

“The Eagle River is the lifeblood of this entire valley,” said Vail local and the director of the Eagle River Fund, Tom Gart. “If you’re taking a drink of water, you’re part of the entire watershed, and so this little precious resource that we have, we’re gonna have to take care of it and we’re gonna have to adapt to the reality of what’s happening in today’s climate.” 

The goal of the event, he added, was education. 

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Vicki Flynn, the director of the Eagle River Coalition, expressed a similar sentiment right before the screening. 

“This movie is going to have a pretty big impact on everyone that watches it and give a really good understanding of what we’re facing in our watershed,” she said. “I think a lot of people have misconceptions about those affected by it and what it means, and so I’m hoping that tonight clears up some misconceptions for people and various communities.” 

One message of the film is that the river both unites and divides people who depend on it, said director and writer of “The River,” Mara Gasbarro Tasker. “We all are stewards of this resource, and it sits in the middle of different cultures and different communities, and so we’re not all necessarily going to be friends in the process, but we all have this waterway.” 

In her hunt to find sources, Tasker said that she took a different approach than what’s seen in many environmental documentaries that feature scientists and experts on the subject. 

“We decided that we wanted to do the research with the experts, but tell the story with the people who are experiencing it and living it,” she said. 

That includes Vail Valley resident, Michael Moser, a recently retired Eagle County teacher of 27 years who had the chance to see both himself and his young students being projected to community members. 

“It was really cool to see the kids up there,” Moser said after the screening. “It’s more their river than it is ours.” 

Moser and his students’ scenes were mostly featured at the end, expressing their interests and concern for the river —  proof of a promising future for environmental activism. 

Some of his students sat in the screening room, adding to the strong turnout of the event. 

“What is awesome and exciting about a community that exists here in Eagle County is people are pretty aware because you have the river right here,” said Tasker, who took the time to answer questions from film viewers after the screening. 

“I think it’s an exciting place to see different restoration efforts and to see how successful those can be because one of the things that I’m hoping that we can remind people, through the film, is that the river can recover; you just have to stop mismanaging it,” she added. “So I think Eagle County is just an exciting place where there are a lot of water lovers here.” 

Correction (06/18/26): The Eagle River accounts for 3% of the Colorado River’s total flow.