Calgary International Mountain Film Festival

Sunday May 1st Screenings:

This year, REEL ROCK turns five, and co-founders Sender Films and Big UP Productions are celebrating by taking you on a global ride like never before. From death-defying speed link-ups of the wildest faces in The Alps, to Olympian displays of strength and tenacity on the hardest boulders ever climbed, REEL ROCK 2010 features a breathtaking journey through the vertical realm with the heroes of rock and snow.

The Calgary International Mountain Film Festival Screens Watersports Films and “Best Films” Sunday May 01st…get your tickets now for 12.95 each or a special package price of $17.95 for both!

Sunday Film Pass Ticket purchase here!

We have had two very exciting nights with Kris Holm showing us the world from the view of a unicycle on Thursday night and Dean Potter thrilling the audience with his highlining and base jumping exploits on Friday evening.

Still to go is the Sunday matinee screening of the Watersports films and in the evening slot the “Best Films” screening.

Tomorrow night we will also have a very special movie to end off the Film Festival. The film is the journey of Calgarian Remy Bernier … and his life as a young guide. Remy was driven by outdoor climbing adventures until tragically struck down by a stroke. Remy is now severly handicapped but aspires to climb once again…a dream that Will Gadd and Tim O’neill are teaming up with Remy to make a reality.
Tickets purchased on-line or by phone will be available at the door of the Plaza Theatre the night of the screening!

Water themed films Sunday May 01st

Time:Doors at2:30pm

Screening: 3 -5:00pm

Price: $12.95

Wild Water

It is a visually stunning feast for the senses, and an expedition into new ideas. The filmmakers set out to create a new kind of adventure film. One where image, sound and ideas trump all else. They wanted to communicate the essence of the thing – wild places and whitewater – and put its soul on film. A tall order. After thousands of hours of effort around the world and in our studio, they have achieved much of the goal. Borrowing Hollywood film tools and techniques, including RED digital cinema cameras and world class post production techniques, WildWater brings not only new perspectives, but new images to kayaking and the world of adventure cinema.

The film focuses on a handful of people who share a deep passion for wild places, rivers and running whitewater. We meet Rod Nash, the wise elder of the river and one of the founders of the wilderness movement in the USA, while he is rowing the Grand Canyon once more at age 72. We meet Doug Ammons, author of the book Whitewater Philosophy and one of Outside Magazines Greatest Adventurers of the last 100 years. And we hear from the current generation of men and women, sharing their love of this shared experience. The result crosses beyond generational and experiential boundaries, even beyond whitewater, to look at the soul of adventure sports and what they mean to all of us as a practice that is about far more than just fun. The film features Ecuador’s Amazon Basin and its remote, wild, jungle rivers, the Grand Canyon, one of America’s great wild places, and a 296 mile river trip, Crystal River Drainage in Colorado showcasing steep, narrow, wild creeks, Yule Creek, Colorado, one of the most dramatic and difficult kayak runs in the world, immense natural forces and very big water at Tumwater Gorge, Washington, USA and North Fork Payette river, Idaho, USA with record high water, known as the “north shore” of river running

Mazungu

Flowing through savanna, thick swamps and dense tropical rainforest, the Congo River has never been descended from source to sea from the true source in North Eastern Zambia. Due to endemic corruption, political instability and years of war, not to mention the crocodiles, hippos, waterfalls and huge white water, the area is a world away from our ‘western society’ and visited by only the most adventurous.

Book of Legends

In 1975 a Russian explorer Igor Bazilevski and his team of ten men tried to make the first decent of the gorge on the lower Bashkaus River in the Altai Mountains in Southern Siberia. In the early stages of the gorge, the team struck tragedy when six out of ten were swept away to their death by the powerful river. The next year the four survivors retuned to the gorge to place a memorial plate, as well as a book at the point in which they lost their lives. In this book the names and the story of the tragic but heroic explorers was left to be seen only by those that have the courage to take on and conquer the mighty lower Bashkaus. After every decent the names of those that survive and the stories of their decent are logged into the Book of Legends.

On the 17th July 2010 an international team of whitewater kayakers headed to the Altai Mountains in search of kayaking the hardest rivers that Altai has to offer and to test them selves against the mighty Lower Bashkaus, in the hope to add their names to the Book of Legends.

Spoil

Tickets can be purchased at Spirit West, 1210 11th Ave. S.W., or by phone 403-263-1381 or in person at Mountain Equipment Co-op.

Purchase Watersports Films Tickets Here

Best Films

Sunday May 01st

Venue: Plaza Theatre

Time : 6:30pm – 9:00pm

Price : $12.95

The Calgary International Mountain Film Festival is proud to present a collage of “Best Films” from this years screenings.

Living the Dream

“For most of the last 6 years I’ve been a traveling vagabond following my passion for rock climbing. This existence involved sleeping outside in wild

places, hitching rides, having very little belongings, a drained bank account and some gourmet dumpster diving for food. I climbed everyday and lived my dream. These days I’m a domesticated man. By most people’s standards I’m still living in the ghetto with my 1988 beater car and trailer-like house. Each day I find time to escape to the nearby rock spires and bag a summit. Making this creative short I realized that I still live my dream everyday…!” [Renan Ozturk]

Azadi Freedom

The crew travel into the mountains surrounding the Gulmarg Ski Resort in order to capture the aesthetic beauty of the landscape and the livelihoods of a people eager to dispel the stigma that Kashmir is a dangerous place to travel. The film singles out the colorful and iconic local characters within the skiing culture of Gulmarg and conveys their passion for the mountains. By allowing the Kashmiri people to show where they are from and significantly, where they are going, the essence of what Kashmir means to it’s people and what it can mean to the rest of world is articulated. As foreigners with relatively little experience or understanding of Kashmir, expressing the temperament of post-war Kashmir is best left to the locals.

With it’s fertile valleys and glaciated mountains that form the very beginning of the Great Himalaya Mountain Range, the region has a distinct allure for skiers/snowboarders and travelers. With the world’s highest gondola rising to 3980m above sea level, the skiing potential is boundless. Through the pursuit of skiing the mountains surrounding Gulmarg in search of the ultimate ski run the crew encounter people who have a symbiotic relationship with the very same mountains. Through beautiful cinematography, interviews, animation and quiet pauses, this backcountry ski film will give you a greater understanding of one of the most negatively publicized regions on the planet… and leave you yearning for winter.

Tuzgle: Argentina

The area is an an altiplano littered with boulders and crags nested at 4200 m of elevation under the Tuzgle volcano. The movie illustrates the daily life of the group in this unexplored wonderland. As days fly by, they realize that the true value of their discoveries is way beyond their expectations… One of the best bouldering destinations of South America has been unveiled. Starring with Nina Caprez, Mike Fuselier, Axel ballay, Nicolas Badia, Sébastien Boussogne and Julien Nadiras.

Cross Country Snowboarding

Cross Country Snowboarding is 1 of 16 in a series of films called “Unreel Sports”, written, directed and starring Adam Brodie & Dave Derewlany. The films were created for the action sports network Fuel TV in the United States of America, and according to Nielson television research, Unreel Sports have directly helped to raise the nation’s spirits and help them rise up from their recent financial crisis. Cross Country Snowboarding is a film about passion, creativity and dedication to the unique outsider-outsider sport of Nordic Snowboarding.

Point of no Return

Elite alpine climbers Jonny Copp and Micah Dash travel to a little-explored and treacherous mountain range near the border of Tibet to make a first ascent of a high-altitude face. When tragedy strikes, the dark and dangerous side of climbing is revealed.

The Peak

Bernard is an average mountain climber. His crew is an average crew. And their climbs are, well….average. But Bernard wants something more: that last unclimbed peak. The peak whose ascent will finally give him what he always dreamed of – a mountain that will bear his name. But out there on the cold, wind-swept ridges of rock, it becomes evident that he and his crew are not alone. Will Bernard and his climbers reach the peak before their rival? Only the mountain knows….

Scattered Flurries

When filmmaker Ben Knight closes his eyes and envisions his home of Telluride, Colorado in deep winter, this is what he sees.

Tickets can be purchased at Spirit West, 1210 11th Ave. S.W., or by phone 403-263-1381 or in person at Mountain Equipment Co-op

or on-line at:

Purchase Tickets for “Best Films” here

We look forward to seeing you at the 3rd Calgary International Mountain Film Festival!

Sincerely,

Steve Bommer
Festival Director

A CALGARY COMMUNITY FESTIVAL

The Calgary International Mountain Film Festival is presented by Spirit West, a Calgary-based outdoor apparel and accessory shop and is supported, in part, by the “Best of the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival”.

The Calgary International Mountain Film Festival brings people and the outdoors together. Come on out and be inspired.

Tickets can be purchased at:
Spirit West, 1210 11th Ave. S.W., or by phone 403-263-1381
or in person at:
Mountain Equipment Co-op, member services desk
830 10 Avenue S.W.

or on line at:

Film Festival Tickets

Calgary Outdoor Festival

Calgary film festival

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Calgary International Mountain Film Festival

Sunday May 1st Screenings:

Still to go is the Sunday matinee screening of the Watersports films and in the evening slot the “Best Films” screening.

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Steve Bommer, Calgary Expo and Festival Show Manager

Spirit West/Outdoor Approach