I made it into the Banff Mountain Film Festival Saturday night, but just barely. I had procrastinated buying tickets for two weeks, left it to the absolute last minute, and then, shocker, found out the event was sold out.
I was really mad at myself for not making it a priority, but more than that I was disappointed to miss the event, which I’ve seen nine out of the past 10 years.
But a last minute decision to try the box office an hour before the show, paid off.
The festival organizers (and Rock Oasis owners) had “a few” unadvertised tickets that hadn’t sold at one of the pre-sale outlets and I was able to get two! Oh man was I happy.
The festival never fails to inspire me to plan a trip, try a new sport, or just get out climbing or biking or hiking. (past write-ups here and here.)
The highlight of this year’s BMFF (at least on the Saturday night – Friday and Sunday had their own lineups) for me was a film called “Eastern Rises.”
One thing I always love about the festival is that it’s never willing to be constrained to a certain type of film. The theme is simply ‘outdoor’ films and that can manifest itself in a lot of different ways.
"Eastern Rises" by Ben Knight (FeltSoul media) was a film that didn’t fit in the normal extreme-adventure-adrenaline-junky category but that nonetheless embodied the spirit of the festival. It was about fly fishing in the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia.
At the start, Knight, who as I understand it shot, directed and narrated the film (thought there’s no IMDB listing and little more than a few random blog posts on the web thus far) explains that he was invited along on an epic fishing trip to the isolated and rugged, and mostly unfished far east of Russia.
But rather than make a beautiful, artsy exploration of the craft of fly fishing, he decided to make a more honest (and cynical and downright hilarious) picture about the trip – that includes fleeting shots of bigfoot, a box of sausages, scary helicopter rides, a Russian blonde in short shorts, and plenty of ridiculous conversations.
But there’s more than that too. The camera captures beautiful, striking, heart-rending moments that bring tears to the eyes of any fisherman or adventure seeker.
The film was poetry to watch, and had me reminiscing about guiding summers at North Star Lodge, and checking weather reports for the warmer weather that will soon bring the trout into the Ganaraska River.
"Eastern Rises" takes place in true frontier land, one of the hardest places to get to in the world, and the rewards are fantastic.
And the two main protagonists in the film (Alaskan fishermen whose names I sadly do not even know due to the shameful shortage of info out there – even on the film’s ‘under construction’ website) are so perfect for the film. One is young, but a born fisherman with deep thoughts on his choice of career and a slow, well-thought-out way of explaining those ruminations that is thought provoking and easy to listen to.
On his response when a client asked him how his parents felt about him ‘wasting his life’ as a fishing guide: “Well…I think they’re jealous, like everyone else.”
The other main fisherman in the film, whose name I also do not know, is a little more verbose, a little louder, the joker of the group, but nonetheless also a brilliant fisherman with fascinating ideas about angling, life, and that Russian bigfoot he’s obsessed with.
But accompanying these characters are fish, millions and millions of fish. Rainbow Trout boil out of the water one after another, exploding onto huge flies tied to look like mice, the prime food source for these carnivorous fish.
It’s incredible. And the camera captures these moments with superb clarity and an artistic approach that makes every fish seem like a primary character in the film.
In the end, this is really just a beautiful, well shot, funny and irreverent film about a group of guys that go on an epic adventure. In that way, it’s like every other adventure movie.
One of the characters, when describing his chosen career path, kind of sums it up I think:
'In the end, fishing is a pretty selfish pursuit. You’re not really doing anything to make the world a better place or to improve the plight of humanity -- except maybe somehow by enriching your own soul.' (paraphrased…)
This film, like fishing, may not make the world a better place. But it will enrich your soul and make you happy, and in that way, perhaps, it is making the world better. Don’t you think?
Eastern Rises | teaser from felt soul media on Vimeo.
This film also has a fantastic soundtrack. Thanks to CompleatThought for putting together a reference list here.
Here are a couple of other films that I really enjoyed at the festival...
“Tibet: Murder in the Snow” (Mark Gould)
There were a few other pretty amazing films that also deserve a mention. “Tibet: Murder in the Snow” was a fantastic film about a tragedy a few years back when Chinese police at the Nangpa Pass on the border of Nepal fired on a group of young Tibetan refugees, killing a teenage nun.
The event was witnessed by numerous Western climbers at a nearby base camp awaiting their summit opening, many of them recording or photographing the incident. The Australian filmmakers painstakingly tracked down these eyewitnesses all over the world, including other survivors who were in the group, and reconstructed the heartbreaking true story.
“As it Happens” (Renan Ozturk and Corey Richards)
Two mountaineers, filmmakers and all-round great storytellers, set out to climb the 6,000-metre Tawoche Himal in Nepal. That would be a feat on its own, but they also documented their adventure moment-by-moment.
And rather than compile a whole bunch of images and footage, bring it all back home and make a film after the fact, they did it guerrilla style. Using a solar-powered modem, and mobile editing equipment, they edited, voiced and posted short dispatches along the way, rogue blogger style, and were followed online by 100,000 people as they did it.
This film compiles those dispatches into a very real and dynamic film that makes you feel like you’re right there with them. Though you’d probably rather not be. 36 hours without water, clinging to a Himalayan mountainside, while trying to make a film, not to mention survive, isn’t for everyone.
