Only one week until the VIMFF

• Posted on January 15, 2010 at 9:22 AM
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The Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival starts in a week, and runs from January 22 to 29.

The festival opens with a great Canadian film—Finding Farley—and then continues with all sorts of great stuff on the big screen. For more details, check out the press release below.

Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival Announces Line-up of Climbing, Environmental and Adventure Films to be screened January 22 – 29, 2010

Vancouver – The Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival has announced its line-up of films that will screen at various venues around Vancouver January 22 – 29, 2010.  This year 44 films from 11 countries including; France, New Zealand, Germany, South Africa and Japan were selected from over 140 international and local entries. Canadian filmmakers will have 12 films screening.  The films will be viewed by festival goers and also judged in the categories of mountaineering, rock climbing, environment, water, ski, mountain biking, best Canadian and best film overall.

From crocodile infested waters of Uganda to the peaks of Northern India’s Garhwal-Himalaya this year’s festival lineup of films promises to once again bring the audiences into the worlds of the adventurers that are at the forefront of exploration, endurance and pushing the boundaries of human achievement in hostile environments.

The festival opens Friday, January 22 at the Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver with a screening of the NFB’s award-winning Finding Farley that follows Karsten Heuer and Leanne Allison with their 2-year old son Zev as they trace the footsteps of writer Farley Mowat on a 5000 km trip of trekking, sailing, portaging and paddling from the Canadian prairies to the Maritimes.

In Expedition Manaslu, a German film screening at the VIMFF Ski Evening on Saturday, January 23, Benedikt Böhm and Sebastian Haag set out to ski the 8163m high Manaslu on an expedition full of unpredictable changes and thin air. Accompanied by the French junior alpinist Nicolas Bonnet they wanted to reach the eighth highest peak of the planet at top speed and ski down again - right through the death zone.

Another mountain adventure film features the story of two teams of climbers including Stephan Siegrist and Ines Papert, who in the early summer of 2007 take to the Arwa Tower, a wonderful 6,000m peak in the Northern Indian Garhwal-Himalaya. Lightning Strike – Arwa Tower screens Wednesday, January 27 at the Pacific Cinematheque.

You may also want to experience the world of extreme altitude paragliding in the high ranges of Pakistan as legendary paragliding pilot John Silvester takes filmmaker Alun Hughes on the tandem flight to end all tandem flights. Birdman of the Karakoram demolishes any idea you may have about paragliding being about serenely floating around the sky. It screens Thursday, January 28 at the Pacific Cinematheque.

The festival was originally started with the intention of bringing top notch climbing film and presentations to Vancouver. Over the years the festival evolved to a broader range of genres, but it still keeps its climbing focus and will offer a bunch of great climbing flicks. Samsara tells the story of Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk as they set out to attempt a first ascent of a 2200 meter rock route in the higher ranges of India. Waypoint Namibia shows a small team of climbers spearheaded by Majka Burhardt, as they head out to Africa in search of great granite lines and deeper understanding of the continent. The recently added Dreamcatcher is a short doc on Sean McColl’s successful climb of a route called Dreamcatcher in Squamish, at 5.14d being the hardest rock climb ever climbed by a Canadian.

More great films will be featured throughout the week, for a complete list of films and more information about the festival visit; www.vimff.org.

The Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival (VIMFF) has been bringing films, multimedia shows and special events on mountain sports and mountain culture to Vancouver since 1998. Over the years, VIMFF has established itself as one of the key cultural events in Vancouver.

Tickets are available online at www.vimff.org; and at the Centennial Theatre, 2300 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, (604) 984-4484.