Not all the films selected for the Banff Film Festival make it to the World Tour. Only the best sequences from eight of them are edited down to a program that can be shown in one night. All the movies were enjoyable and there was representation from enough mountain sports to please most people. Unlike previous years, however, most of the movies were not festival award winners. I think only one of the eight movies shown received a special award so I’m not sure how and why they have chosen the content they have. I’m not complaining about what was chosen for the program,  but I wish that it was possible to see some of the winners, since these movies don’t usually get widely distributed. A list of award-winners for 2008/09 can be found at the Banff Centre.

This year the line-up is:

Under the Influence (USA, 12 minutes)
Directed and produced by Todd Jones, Steve Jones, Corey Gavitt
Skiing and snowboarding in relentless powder in Jackson Hole and incredibly steep spines in Alaska
www.tetongravity.com

Papiroflexia (USA, 3 minutes)
Directed and produced by Joaquin Baldwin
www.pixelnitrate.com
An animated tale of a man who reshapes his industrial world into an environmental wonderland using origami.

99 Days on the Ice (France, 52 minutes)
Directed by Jean-Gabriel Leynaud Produced by Patrick Villeneuve, Karsten Kjaer
www.sombreoandco.fr
A couple, who first met at the North Pole, cross the (rapidly melting) Arctic from Russia to Canada on foot.

The Red Helmet (USA, 6 minutes)
Directed by Tyler Young Produced by Dave Barlia
www.outdoorgames.org
A young boy finds a red helmet in the forest, through which he experiences kayaking, BASE jumping, climbing and other mountain adventures.

Daily Strips (France, 6 minutes)
Directed and produced by Dominique Janiszewski , Claude Adam
www.ridetheplanets.com
A mixture of animation, skiiing, snowboarding, speed riding, mountaineering and BASE jumping

The Last Frontier — Papua New Guinea (USA, 18 minutes)
Directed and produced by Trip Jennings
www.epicocity.com
Explorations through pristine forest and intact indiginous cultures to find the source of a river deep in a cave system and to kayak it back to the ocean.

Seasons (Canada, 25 minutes)
Produced by Jamie Houssian
www.thecollective.com
Some of the world’s best moutain bike riders share their training techniques, mental and physical challenges through the course of a year.

The Sharp End (USA, 17 minutes)
Directed and produced by Peter Mortimer, Nick Rosen
www.senderfilms.com
A group of elite American climbers, guided by locals, experience some of the scariest climbing in the world in the mountains between Austria and the Czech republic

]]> http://nicolaoutdoors.com/entries/2009/06/11/banff-mountain-film-festival-world-tour-2009/feed/ 0 http://nicolaoutdoors.com/entries/2009/04/20/solo-the-andrew-mcauley-story-airs-on-abc/ http://nicolaoutdoors.com/entries/2009/04/20/solo-the-andrew-mcauley-story-airs-on-abc/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:17:06 +0000 nicola http://nicolaoutdoors.com/entries/?p=453

David Michôd's documentary 'Solo' (co-directed with Jen Peedom) about Andrew McAuley's attempt to kayak the Tasman Sea from Tasmania, Australia to Milford Sound, New Zealand

In 2007,  Andrew McAuley set out on a 1,600 kilometre solo adventure to cross the Tasman Sea by kayak. His journey across infamously treacherous seas was outside of the range of helicopter rescue for all but the first and last 200km. After a month at sea, in which he survived incredible storms, 60 knot winds and 10-12m waves, he was within sight of New Zealand’s South Island. His wife and child were waiting on the shore at Milford Sound when a distress call was received. Soon after his kayak was found, but Andrew McAuley had disappeared.

‘Solo’, a documentary about his adventure and final days, aired on on ABC1 (Australia) on Friday 17th April 2009. The complete documentary can be watched online at ABC’s iVIEW for until May 1st 2009. Within Australia, it can can also be downloaded here, streamed from here, and is available on DVD from the ABC shop. The documentary was screened by the BBC in the UK as ‘Solitary Endeavor on the Southern Ocean’ in February 2009.

‘Solo’ is very hard to watch, but is too incredible a story not to hold your complete attention. The entire expedition borders on fantastical, and seems almost beyond the possibilities of human endurance. That he successfully crossed the Tasman is an incomprehensible achievement, and only serves to compound the tragedy that he did not make landing on the NZ coast. The footage is harrowing enough that it seems unlikely that anyone will attempt to repeat the journey in quite as pure a fashion as McAuley. His journey was so different, both in craft and route, to the successful Queensland-Auckland crossing by James Castrission and Justin Jones in 2007/2008, that they can hardly be compared in the same breath. Watching the video footage recovered from his kayak, it’s hard to believe that McAuley made it so far and equally hard to believe that he did not make it to land.

With regards to the film-making, it is worth watching if only for the footage recovered from the kayak’s cockpit. The interviews with his wife are emotional but also revealing into his psyche and strength of mind. However, I found the footage of his son to be entirely intrusive and edited in a way that seemed wholly contrived to tug the emotions of the viewer. This detracted from the piece as an expedition documentary and made it more like prime-time reality TV. Most interesting were the interviews with his friends and colleages, with regards to his perceived competition from the Castrission-Jones crossing. The section covering the marine police’s enquiry into his expedition was not given enough attention. As a viewer interested in expeditions (rather than personal dramas) I would have enjoyed discssions into the reasons for these actions.  ‘Solo’ does not have the style of expedition docmentaries that are made for film and that it was ‘made for  television’ is obvious and detracts slightly from it as an adventure film piece.

Photograph by "the eye of'"

When I first started teaching her, I remember telling her, you know, the rules of B.A.S.E. jumping, like, the facts. You jump long enough, you’ll break bones. You’re in the sport long enough, you’re going to watch people die. And then, third, and it’s kind of a pointless thing to talk about, but you’re gonna die too. Do this long enough, it’s gonna kill you. If you can’t deal with that, don’t get into B.A.S.E jumping. – Jeb Corliss speaking in ’20 Seconds of Joy’

Not everyone can understand the attraction of risky activities. For me, it’s about conquering fear. The fear of being stopped by fear is far greater than the fear of pretty much anything. Anything that I have backed away from because of fear has caused me more sleepless nights and emotional torment than anything that I have sweated and shaken through but done anyway. Of course, you have to accept the risk. More accurately, you have to accept that your personal ability outweighs the risk. Often the perception of risk, is much, much greater than the actual risk – falling on a rope can still feel scary even though is almost always perfectly safe. B.A.S.E jumping an activity that often divides opinion. Some people insist that it is as safe as anything else, others believe that a certain element of control is lost; that failure is more  often  beyond human control. And, of course, the consequences of failure be fatal.

How do you sum up a human who spent his life leaving everybody speechless? March 26th, 2009 skiing lost an ambassador, B.A.S.E. jumping an innovator, the world a jester, and the world a friend.  We all got so used to seeing Shane do such gnarly things on skis and parachutes that a day like today didn’t seem possible, the guy did what he wanted when he wanted and with a smile he got away with it. We will all miss you DudeManBro. –  Team Red Bull, in memory of Shane McConkey (1969-2009)

Last month, Shane McConkey passed away in a tragic accident in the Dolomites. After performing a double back flip, McConkey intended to glide away in his wingsuit, but struggled to release his skis. By the time he got them off, he was too close to the ground for his wingsuit or parachute to do him any good. His parachute did not malfunction, it was never deployed.

Shane McConky was one of the first people that I ever saw wingsuit footage of. These are my favourite clips:

Matchstick Productions wingsuit flying segment from 2007′s feature film
“Seven Sunny Days.”

Big mountain skiing and base jumping

But, who doesn’t dream of being able to fly? And can people survive incredible things. I’m amazed and deeply moved by people who manage to keep pushing after the most life-shattering disasters …

Official trailer for Jens Hoffman’s ’20 Seconds of  Joy’

The tickets to the 2008 Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour are taped to my refrigerator. Perhaps this is what led me to search for what happened to Karina Hollekim, the star of last year’s ‘20 Seconds of Joy‘, which won the 2007 Audience Award. ’20 Seconds’ is amazing movie, covering several years of Karina’s life, including her 2006  parachute malfunction, which resulted in her hitting the ground at more than 100 km/h. The accident left her with 4 fractures in her left femur and 21 open fractures in her right leg. But Karina lived. And lives on and on…

I was overjoyed to see that almost three years on Karina has completed 20 surgeries, is walking, is out of rehabilitation, is sit-skiing and hopes to be back on two skis sometime in 2009. Probably these three years have seen her complete the most difficult tasks of her life. They have also made her even more inspiring than she was as an elite athlete.

Karina Hollekim, speaking to Outside online in 2008:

Do you think you’ll jump again?
… I’m scared. It’s always like this after a big accident and it takes time to get over it. If I spend two, maybe three years in rehab centers and hospitals just to get back to my life, maybe I spent all my luck and I don’t want to end up in this situation again. And the next time I don’t know if I’ll be this lucky. I don’t want to say never. You should never say never.

Springtime on the Razorback (click image for more)

It’s springtime and the snow is slurpee.
But it’s still better to be in the mountains!

Razorback Snowboarding (click image for more)

We drove halfway to the mountains on Friday night and stayed in a motel. Then, Saturday morning we drove up to Diamantina hut, walked out along the razorback with our boards and skis to play! We found the snowcave that we built three weeks ago to be in perfect condition, if a bit icy. But we walked back and spent the night in the hut and on Sunday played again until mid afternoon and drove back to Melbs. Had lots of fun taking photos and videos and getting exhausted walking back up to the ridge…

Ross Video

Nicola Video

I dreamed of impossibly high ridges and dreamlike ascents …

It was a very nostalgic movie for us because so much of it was Pacific North-West marine life… lots of memories of plumose anemone forests, giant nudibranchs, giant pacific octopuses, wolf-eels etc.

The 3D effects were awesome. The little kids at the front were putting their hands up to touch the squid and moon jellies that seemed to be swimming right through the audience. To complement, the Melbourne Museum has a huge underwater display at the moment. If you can get to see both or either, I recommend a visit.