OCTOBER 1-4
original thinkers festival 2026
Discover Original Thinkers — where ideas come alive in bold new ways through:
• Captivating Films • Inspiring Speakers • Memorable Art • Unique Performances • Soul-Stirring Adventures
tickets on sale now!
Big Ideas Pass: $200 / Includes all programming and events across town that will include films, gallery tours, tea ceremonies and other OT assemblies October 1-4, 2026.
Eureka Pass: $1000 / Reserved seating and all of the Big Idea Pass as well as exclusive events and a sweet swag bag from Amundsen.
warm cookies of the revolution + OT 2026
We’re excited to partner with Warm Cookies of the Revolution in a big way this year and to bring more engaging Cookie programming to Telluride. Here’s just a small taste of what they brought to Original Thinkers in 2025.
the people
Adrian Molina
Warm Cookies of the Revolution
Adrian H. Molina is a Denver-based artist, poet, and "Future Builder" for Warm Cookies of the Revolution. He uses art, performance, and community engagement to explore themes of humanity, technology, and social futures, notably leading projects like the Future Town Tour. He is a conceptual and multimedia artist, curator, and poet. Installations, exhibitions, residencies and programs include collaborations with Meow Wolf, Denver Art Museum, Understudy/Denver Theater District, and Breck Create. Molina runs Future Town Tour for Warm Cookies of the Revolution. Future Town positions small towns in rural America in the future, rather than the past.
Evan Weissman is the founding executive director of Warm Cookies of the Revolution, a civic health club that blends innovative arts and culture with crucial civic issues. Prior to founding Warm Cookies of the Revolution, he spent 12 years as a company member of the collaborative Buntport Theater Company, who the Denver Post called "Monty Python’s anarchist grandchildren," winning over 100 awards as playwright, director, designer, and actor. His work with Warm Cookies includes creating over 400 arts-based civic programs including: live events, installations, videos, music, and books. Evan can be found giving talks and workshops at fancy universities, conferences, alleyways, and kindergarten classrooms. Evan was awarded a Roddenberry Fellowship, a Kellogg Foundation Leadership for Community Change Fellowship, a Livingston Fellowship, as well as the Colorado Governor’s Award for Creative Leadership and Parr Widener Civic Leadership Award. He was Denver Commissioner for Cultural Affairs, and Creative-in-Residence at the Denver Art Museum. Evan is a US Ambassador for the Royal Society for Arts. Evan teaches courses on nonviolent social change at Colorado College. He was the founding organizer of Colorado Bend The Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Social and Economic Justice, and co-founder of the Denver chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Evan is horrible at drawing and swimming, among many other deficiencies.
Evan Weissman
Warm Cookies of the Revolution
Stevie Selby is a multidisciplinary artist, photographer, filmmaker, and cultural storyteller whose work explores the intersections of people, place, imagination, and transformation. Through visual media, immersive experiences, and community-centered projects, he creates work that invites people to see themselves and the world around them differently. At the heart of his practice is a curiosity about what becomes possible when art is used not only to document culture, but to actively shape it.
Stevie Selby
Warm Cookies of the Revolution
Jessica chacon
Warm Cookies of the Revolution
Jessica is a multi-dimensional practitioner, movement educator, & facilitator in the healing arts- passionate about bringing back the ceremonial & ritualistic aspects to our lives, to support the spirit & soul to be nourished alongside the body & mind. She blends Earth-based wisdom, Indigenous & Eastern philosophies with modern science, helping humans to integrate and embody what it means to be human on the Earth at this time. From psychedelic therapy in her private practice, to women’s circles, retreats, teacher trainings and community organizing, Jessica hopes to help people de-colonize their mind/body, re-member who they are and widen their capacity to be present inside their sacred vessel, life, family and community. She is the owner of Sweetgrass Therapeutics-an Integrative Wellness Center in the San Luis Valley that is home to her private practice, yoga studio and is one of the locations for Warm Cookies of the Revolution’s Dreamscapes Lounge: Future Town 2045 Art Exhibition. When she’s not showing up for community you can find Jessica mothering, adventuring outdoors, writing poetry & music, or finding silence in hot springs.
Betsy Gaines Quammen is a historian and award-winning writer. She is fascinated by how cultural views shape relationships to landscape—and she loves a good ghost story! Betsy received a PhD from Montana State University, where she studied religion, history, and the philosophy of science. Her dissertation focused on Mormon history and the roots of armed public land conflicts in the United States.
Betsy's work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Daily News, and the History News Network. She is the author of This Haunted Land, American Zion, and True West. She lives in Bozeman, Montana, with her husband, writer David Quammen, three big dogs, a sturdy cat, and a lanky rescue python.
betsy gaines quaMmen
Chris Jennings is the author of Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism and End of Days: Ruby Ridge, the Apocalypse, and the Unmaking of America. A former editorial staffer at The New Yorker and employee of Telluride Sports, he graduated from Deep Springs College and Wesleyan University. Jennings lives in Inverness, California with his family.
Author
Chris jennings
Author
Vicki Curtis
Comparsa Director, Producer, Writer
Anna Hadingham
Comparsa, Producer
Lesli Canela PÉrez
Comparsa, Co-producer, Writer, Impact Facilitator
lupe PÉrez
Comparsa, Co-producer, Writer, Impact Facilitator
alicia michelsen
Warm Cookies of the Revolution
Matt hardesty
aka whadubber
Warm Cookies of the Revolution
Emmy-winning writer of Netflix Originals The Social Dilemma and Chasing Coral, Vickie makes her directorial debut with Comparsa. Her work explores the systemic roots of social and ecological crises, and the artists and activists working to rebuild. Vickie’s storytelling spans award-winning documentaries including Searching For Amani (Tribeca), We Are Guardians (HotDocs, Netflix LatAm), Greener Pastures (POV), and Anbessa (Berlinale, Arte). After years studying theatre and education, she brings a collaborative ethos to each project.
Anna is a youth organizer and theater artist who spent a life-changing decade working for the grassroots youth organization Peronia Adolescente in Ciudad Peronia, Guatemala alongside the participants of Comparsa. In Guatemala, Anna had the privilege of producing dozens of comparsas, street festivals and original theatre with Peronia youth that they presented throughout Central America. She serves as community liaison and impact producer on the Comparsa film team. Anna has also served as director of youth programs at La Colaborativa, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering the immigrant community in Chelsea, Massachusetts. She continues collaborations with Peronia Adolescente, rooting her work in community, justice, and imagination.
Lesli is a youth organizer, circus performer and community leader from Ciudad Peronia, Guatemala. Lesli came of age in the grassroots community organization Peronia Adolescente, where she began stilt walking, fire-breathing and facilitating workshops of her peers at a young age. Lesli is a powerful mobilizer and has rallied young people in her community to stand up for their rights, transform a clandestine garbage dump into a playground, and bring art and joy into the streets. Over the past nine years, Lesli has performed in and begun producing dozens of comparsas, street performances and workshops for her community. Through shaping production and writing original poems and text for Comparsa, her storytelling is a central feature of the filmmaking process. She plans to bring her circus arts and community organizing skills to the impact campaign by leading workshops, teacher trainings, and facilitated discussions throughout Guatemala in tandem with screenings of the film.
Lupe is an educator, community organizer and tattoo artist from Ciudad Peronia, Guatemala. Lupe became involved with the community organization Peronia Adolescente when she was a teenager and began practicing stilt walking and mural painting among other artforms. Lupe now works as an educator and mentor with Peronia Adolescente, reaching hundreds of youth with academic support and creative expression projects. Lupe has collaborated closely as a member of the Comparsa documentary crew both in production and as a writer. She plans to bring her arts-driven community organizing skills to the impact campaign by leading workshops, teacher trainings, and facilitated discussions throughout Guatemala in tandem with screenings of the film.
Alicia Michelsen is the CEO at The Learning Council, an educational and food equity nonprofit in Paonia, Co. Alicia is the force and yes behind many projects. She finds creative ways to cultivate community action and supportive community events that uplift multi-generations and underestimated communities within the North Fork Valley and beyond.
Alicia helped start the Arbol Farmers Market, advocacy for comprehensive sex education in Delta County schools, community meals made of local produce, movement and art classes for all, Festival Agricola- Mexican heritage street fair, leads community donation of food to the Towaoc Reservation, and has revitalized creative events in her community. Alicia Sits on the Boards of Western Colorado Migrant and Rural Coalition, Western Slope Native American Resource Center. and Viva la Vida Foundation, She is a village herbalist, mother of three sons.
Matt Hardesty (aka whadubber) blends interactive sampling and real-time audio production to create sonic collage.
the films
From the shadows of a Guatemalan barrio scared into silence, sisters Lesli and Lupe lead a luminous rebellion—unleashing joy, art, and radical truth in an epic fight for survival.
Comparsa fully immerses audiences in the intense world of Ciudad Peronia, Guatemala, where sisters Lesli and Lupe use art to inspire local youth and heal deep wounds. After 41 girls are killed in a State-run “Safe Home” and the government refuses to act, the sisters respond with a community comparsa—an exuberant street performance featuring towering puppets, fire-breathing stilt walkers, and thundering drums. With brave vulnerability, they expose a system that permits and commits violence against women, and they open up about surviving violence in their own home. Their youth movement takes to the streets, confronting corruption and reclaiming public space for women and girls. Rooting their efforts in joy and community care, they find healing along the way. Built on a 17-year relationship between the subjects and the film team, Comparsa offers a stirring portrait of sisterhood, peacebuilding, and the transformational power of art. Comparsa Trailer
the schedule
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the activities
talks
Activities
gatherings
the partners
