What: Telluride Mountainfilm Festival
Where: MY (Millennium) Place
When: April 14-15
Tickets: $15
Collections of award winning short and mid-length films from the 26-year-old Telluride Mountainfilm Festival will screen at MY Place on Wednesday and Thursday.
Each night will feature a different program of adventure and mountain culture films. Though both types of films will be represented in each compilation, Wednesday night’s showcase will have a greater emphasis on adventure, while Thursdays will focus on culture.
Wednesday’s lineup includes Pororoca , Joachim Hellinger’s lyrical documentary about surfing in the Amazon jungle, a runner up for the people’s choice best short film award at the 2003 Whistler Film Festival. The lineup also includes bio-pics on Everest climbers Anatoli Boukreev and Goran Kropp.
Thursday’s lineup includes Mountainfilm 2003’s Best Independent Documentary award winner The Beast Within , Josh Davis and Joanna Silber’s account of a writer’s stint on the professional arm-wrestling circuit, as well as films from Russia, Poland and a Canadian-made film on the challenges of landmine removal in Cambodia.
The screenings begin at 7 p.m. on both nights. Tickets for each event are $15 with 100 per cent of all ticket sales donated to the Whistler Blackcomb Foundation Environment Fund.
Tickets can be purchased in advance through TicketMaster or at MY Place.
For more information call 604-935-8410.
Sawtooth back for Ski and Snowboard Fest
What: Sawtooth Film Festival
Where: Mt. Currie Ballroom, Delta Whistler Resort
When: Friday, April 16
Tickets: $6
Every decent action sports film has that one epic section that deserves a rewind... and another rewind... and another.
Imagine taking the most rewind-able sections from the year’s best action films and putting them together into one amazing high-octane compilation and you have the popular Sawtooth Adrenalin Film Festival.
The four-year-old festival will screen twice next Friday, April 16, day one of the Telus World Ski and Snowboard festival.
Films represented in the current offering include Teton Gravity Research’s High Life ski film, snowboarding scenes from TreeTop Films’ The Main Event and FreeRide Films’ coverage of the 2002 Red Bull Rampage invitational mountain bike contest in Utah.
Also featured are excerpt sections from Red Bull’s Amazon Surf Project , whitewater kayak film No Big Names , and Felix Channel Crossing an account of an Aussie bloke’s attempt to fly across the English Channel with only a wing strapped to his back.
This year’s Sawtooth screenings are sponsored by Pique Newsmagazine with ticket proceeds donated to the Zero Ceiling Society, an organization that gives under-privileged youths the chance to learn to ski or snowboard.
The festival screens at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. in the Mt. Currie Ballroom at the Delta Whistler Resort. Tickets are $6, available only at the door.
For more information go to www.whistler2004.com.
Touching the Void to launch Reel Alternatives
The Whistler Film Festival Society is launching their Reel Alternatives monthly film series on Monday, April 19 with feature documentary Touching the Void .
Based on the best-selling book of the same name, the film tells the true story of mountaineers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates’ harrowing experiences while attempting the first ascent of the west face of the 21,000 foot Siula Grande peak in the Peruvian Andes in the mid-1980s.
Touching the Void
was honoured with the Best Feature Length Mountain Film award at the 2003 Banff Mountain Film Festival.The film will screen at 7:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. at Village 8 cinemas.
Tickets are $8.50, available in advance from the Escape Route in Whistler Marketplace and after 5:30 p.m. at Village 8 on the day of the screening.
For more information call 604-938-3200.
