Reviews & Quotes | Pushed Up The Mountain

UNC-Chapel Hill | Elizabeth Havice, Professor of Geography
“Pushed Up the Mountain takes viewers on a visually dazzling and provocative exploration of the historical and geographic connections that make global conservation. By bringing the rhododendron to life from the vantage point of colonial histories, scientific discovery and the passion of advocates, it compels the viewer to imagine what else the ancient flower might bring into being. Equally perfect for students of geography, ecology and conservation or the curious plant lover, this timely film offers the rhododendron as a window into the pressing questions that the earth and its inhabitants face in an era of dramatic environmental change."

Educational Media Reviews Online | Kristan Majors, Woodruff Library, Emory University
Recommended. "The documentary has portions relevant to college and university courses studying herbaria, botanical museums & collections, seed banks, and botanical & conservation gardens."

University of Colorado Boulder | Jennifer Ho, Eaton Professor of Humanities and the Arts
"...Pushed up the Mountain is really important, powerful, and topical right now in terms of climate change, conservation, and taking a longer view about humans' relationship to nature. The ways that viewers learn about the rhododendron and how it has benefited the landscape/ecosystem and thus humans (and pandas) is a critical message. It also shows people that there are Chinese who are working on these issues. This is important because China is so often represented in a very monolithic way in the media—as a polluter, as an authoritarian nation, as a country that is backwards."

Binghamton University | Fa-ti Fan, Professor of History

“This film is profound, enthralling, and easily relatable. It deserves to be seen by students and anyone who is interested in the contemporary issues of nature, conservation, and Chinese-Western relationships and their history.”

Sierra Club | Robbie Cox, former President
"Stunning and urgent, this film quickens our awareness of nature's loss and, for conservationists particularly, invites an ethic of caring in defense of plants and their shrinking habitat."

 Film Threat | Kyle Bain
"The rhododendron, and what Haslett is able to bring to life, is unique and groundbreaking […] This is truly the most captivating documentary I’ve seen in a long time."

Simon Kilmurry, Former Executive Director of IDA and POV
"[The film] has such a tender, yearning tone gently calling our attention to the madness that we wreak on nature and ultimately ourselves. There are so many layers at work - from colonialism to connection across border and time, in timescales long and short."