If you would rather frolic in the rapids of a torrential river than play World of Warcraft until 3 a.m., this film fest might inspire you sit still long enough to formulate your next daring plan. The Adventure Film Festival opens today at the Boulder Theater in Boulder, Colorado. This evening's program runs from 7-9 p.m. (Click here for a PDF of the full festival schedule.) Sponsored by Patagonia and a number of other forward-thinking, community-minded partners, Adventure Film also hosts screenings in Chamonix, France and Santiago, Chile, as well as a touring program that visits Seattle, San Francisco, New York, and Boston throughout the year.
The week's program begins on Thursday with the short, Skateistan, which examines how skateboarding is pushing the boundaries of change for two teens (one of them a young woman) in Afghanistan. On Skateistan's heels follows Ben Knight's thoughtful Eastern Rises, as a group of fly fisherman explore the pristine environments of the Kamchatka Peninsula of Pacific Russia in their search for "the most wild and beautiful trout in the world." Knight's deadpan narration is spot on. The trailer on the film fest site had me laughing out loud at his description of a fly hook that looks "like the half-eaten rodent your cat wheezed up on the kitchen floor." (It does.) This second trailer strikes a more awe-struck tone:
After intermission are two killer-looking ski flicks: the short, Desert River, and Australis: An Antarctic Ski Odyssey. In Australis, a group of experienced, daring (I'd venture "crazy") skiers take on the slopes of Antarctica--with no guidebook, no lift, and not much between the end of the slope and the near-freezing polar waters, below. I suppose, given the rate at which the planet's poles are melting, these folks might have discovered the next great ski resort destination--all they need is a hot tub and a bit more beach.
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