The ninth annual Adventure Film Festival premiers next week, October 4-6, in Boulder at the Boulder Theater. This year’s powerful collection of 40 insightful and award-winning outdoor and environmental films are dedicated to all aspects of adventure—climbing, biking, skiing, surfing, and gliding, as well as environmentalism, global awareness, and social issues. The Boulder showing kicks off a world tour that includes Chamonix, Santiago, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Singapore, among others.
The three-day celebration of the power of story begins on Thursday with a pre-party at Prana in Boulder from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., featuring “Senses of Adventure,” an interactive art exhibit. Title sponsor Patagonia’s community night blowout is immediately following at 7:00 p.m. with film previews, music, munchies, and New Belgium Beer. The film festival concludes with an after party at Shine at 10:30 p.m. on Saturday night. Anyone can attend any of these events, regardless of having a ticket to the film fest.
In conjunction with the film festival, Boulder resident and three-time Emmy award winner Michael Brown will be holding an adventure filmmaker workshop from October 5-7 at the Boulder REI. His star-studded panel includes Tyler Young, Alexandria Bombach, Cedar Wright, John Dickey, Peter Mortimer, Ryan Fenson-Hood, Ryan Van Duzer, and Timmy O’Neill. Each speaker will focus on different aspects of their profession, with topics including Documentary Filmmaking, Camera Techniques, Film Distribution, and Editing Tricks. There is also a FREE photography workshop from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m. at Eldorado Canyon State Park through Neptune Mountaineering featuring some of the most successful adventure photographers in Colorado and beyond, including Claudia Camilla Lopez, Andy Mann, Mikey Schaefer, and Lucas Gilman.
The films begin showing on Friday night from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., with a full-day session on Saturday from 2:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Tickets are $30 Friday only, $35 Saturday only, and $55 for both. The Family & Kids festival on Saturday from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. is FREE and features short, inspiring (and often humorous) films the whole family can enjoy. Click here for the Adventure Film Festival program and schedule.
A Boulder-based selection committee handpicked this year’s robust lineup from over 400 entries submitted from 15 different countries. While the staff here at Elevation Outdoors recommends seeing all 40 selected, here are the ones that I’m most excited about:
FRIDAY
Silvia: Winter Tails with Matt Hunter (5 minutes, 5:00-6:00 pm)
I hadn’t heard of fatbiking, also called snow bike racing, until I reported on a story about it for the upcoming November issue of Elevation Outdoors. The sport requires burly four- to five-inch tires and originated in Alaska a decade ago as a form of adventure racing on the snow-packed Iditarod Trail. In this visually stunning film, downhiller Matt Hunter does it with spikes on his mountain bike tires on the snowy trails of his native Kamloops, British Columbia.
Skiing the Void (7 minutes, 6:00-8:30 p.m.)
This film is the latest installment in the “On the Road with Solitaire,” a series of vignettes derived from the two years worth of footage captured to film Solitaire, Sweetgrass Productions’ award-winning South American ski odyssey from 2011. In typical Sweetgrass style, Skiing the Void was shot deep in the backcountry and is rife with deep introspection and poetic narrative as skiers morn the loss of two dear friends who died on previous expeditions.
The Gimp Monkeys (8 minutes, 6:00-8:30 p.m.)
Featuring Loveland resident Craig DeMartino (who will appear in the November issue of EO), The Gimp Monkeys follows the first all-disabled team ascent of Yosemite’s iconic El Capitan via the Zodiac, an 1,800-foot route on the Southeast Face. DeMartino lost a leg after a 100-foot fall while climbing in Estes Park in 2002. He’s joined on El Cap by Pete Davis, who was born without an arm, and Jarem Frye, who lost a leg to bone cancer.
SATURDAY
Mama Picchu (17 minutes, 2:00-4:00 p.m.)
Boulder’s charismatic television personality Ryan Van Duzer chronicles his mom’s first adventure in 30 years—attempting to summit Machu Picchu in Peru. With her two grown sons by her side, she battles fears about recent heart issues and her own self-doubt. Van Duzer’s unpretentious filmmaking style perfectly captures a relatable, real life story.
Shannon Galpin, A MoveShake Story (13 minutes, 4:00-6:00 p.m.)
Breckenridge’s own Shannon Galpin stars in this inspired film by Alexandria Bombach. Galpin could be any one of us, a single mother who loves to mountain bike, but she takes her passion a step beyond where most of us would be willing to go—Afghanistan. In this MoveShake Story, Galpin candidly speaks about her motivation to improve life for women in Afghanistan, at any cost. Disclosure: That woman failing to choke back her sobs in the theatre during this film? That’s me. Sorry.
Out Living It (44 minutes, 4:00-6:00 p.m.)
Uplifting and gut-wrenching, this film by three-time Emmy Award winner Michael Brown follows a group of young cancer survivors during a week of outdoor adventure on the Colorado River with First Descents, a Denver-based non-profit founded by pro kayaker Brad Ludden. The raw realities of their dramatic experiences fighting cancer give them a unique perspective as they face the challenges of learning to kayak and rock climb.
