Lovin’ nature with the Big Sur Wild and Scenic Film Festival.

A closeup focuses on scuffed work boots and blue jeans. A man steps out of his battered trailer into the sun, his hands stuffed into the pockets of an ancient jacket, hair tucked under a knit cap. In the background are patches of lonely desert scrub, in the foreground metal dishes atop a crate.

“My name is Alf Randell,” the man says. “I’m 53 years old and I’ve been climbing for 40 years.”

This is the opening scene of A Desert Life, a 9-minute film profiling Randell, a self-described “dirtbag” who’s spent nearly a decade living and climbing the sandstone cliffs of Indian Creek, Utah. The documentary is a tribute to this desert hermit and his passion for nature – and aversion to society. He makes his living guiding climbers and repairing their beat-up shoes.

The film is one of 10 showing at this year’s Wild and Scenic Film Festival, presented by the Ventana Wilderness Alliance at the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur. The local fest is an offshoot of a much larger one held in Nevada City. From dozens of films at that event, the Ventana Wilderness Alliance chose those that will especially appeal to a Central Coast crowd.

VWA Executive Director Mike Splain appreciates the perspective furnished by A Desert Life.

“I think it really sets the tone of our priorities,” he says. “Is it important to have a successful career, or is it important to do what you love?”

The other films in the series inspire similar sentiment, and teach hard-discovered lessons. Water Tower, a 28-minute documentary, investigates how the mountaintop glaciers that produce Kenya’s main water supply are melting away.

“We chose that because we’re facing climate change,” Splain says. “We feel it here on the Central Coast too. We thought that folks can’t keep taking for granted that our wildlands are going to keep producing for us. They may not.”

The themes of these films – loving and protecting nature – encompass the mission of the Ventana Wilderness Alliance.

The Ventana wilderness is a federally designated area in the Santa Lucia Mountains, along the Central Coast, with the range’s highest point – Junipero Serra Peak – located in Monterey County. In this lush wilderness live mountain lions, deer, badgers and the California condor, among other creatures. In addition to the “charismatic megafauna,” as Splain calls them, the land teems with plant life.

“They’re even more fantastic than the fauna in some ways,” he says. “It’s really the meeting place of Northern and Southern California.”

“PEOPLE DON’T STEP UP TO DEFEND WHAT THEY DON’T KNOW AND LOVE.”

In some canyons, he says, you’ll find Northern redwoods and southern Yucca on opposite-facing slopes, a stark representation of natural boundaries.One film, Yosemite Nature Notes-Sky Islands, highlights the unique wildflowers that grow above the world on isolated patches of the Sierra Nevadas – a phenomenon that occurs here too.

The Alliance originally advocated for more designated wilderness and better management of that land. But, as budgets dwindled for the U.S. Forest Service, which maintains the land, the Alliance transformed into a protector of the wild. Decades ago there were several park rangers who taught the public to love and care for Ventana. Now only Alliance volunteers maintain trails and clean up after visitors.

One of the reasons for having the festival, hosted by California Natural Resources Agency Secretary John Laird, is to bring the public’s eye to the breathtaking scenes just outside civilization. It’s to spark the curiosity, the desire to reconnect with Earth.

“People don’t step up to defend what they don’t know and love,” Splain says.

Along with the films from Nevada City, there’s a local treat too: Erik Gandolfi, a freelance video producer from Santa Cruz, produced a short about the Ventana Wilderness Alliance itself. Gandolfi says he’s been coming to Big Sur all his life, but never realized how much it has to offer until he hooked up with the Alliance.

“I had no clue how much explorable wilderness there is up there,” he says. “I mean, it literally is what it means. It’s wild lands. You gotta bring your water, you gotta bring a shovel, you gotta bring things you need that are necessary for spending 24 hours out there.”

Gandofli spent six days shooting in the backcountry. But amid the beauty, he made an unpleasant discovery: Some people, uneducated about the rules of the wild, have disrespected it.

“I’m walking around, and there’s this area probably as large as a Starbucks just littered with human feces and toilet paper and stuff,” he says. The filmmaker thought, Here’s our next cleanup project.

“There was so much to learn about going up to the Ventana wildlands,” he says. “You get away from the rat race, and it just changes your whole mindset.”

But, he adds, “You need to have a little more respect and concern. There’s not much designated wilderness left.”

That doesn’t mean we all have to be like Randell, the desert rock climber who abandoned society, but a little of his passion for wildlands can go a long way.

WILD & SCENIC FILM FESTIVAL happens 6:30-10pm Saturday, Sept. 14; $20/ticket or free if joining VWA or renewing; Henry Miller Memorial Library, 48603 Highway 1, Big Sur; 423-3191, www.ventanawild.org/wsff.