For the week of January 8 - 14, 2003

Mountainfilm Festival
on tour

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By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer

There is something vicariously thrilling about viewing adventure films in a small venue. The internationally acclaimed Telluride Mountainfilm Festival, which takes place annually over Memorial Day, has been touring with select films for the past four years. The festival’s tour makes a return visit to Ketchum Friday, Jan. 10, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 11, at 4 and 7 p.m. at the nexStage Theatre.

Mountainfilm brings a "provocative collection of award winning films from its most recent festival and classics from its archives," said Virginia Egger, board director of the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival. Its tour hits nearly 100 venues around the country.

The tour’s Ketchum dates will benefit the Environmental Resource Center, and is sponsored by the Raynier Institute in Seattle and the parents of The Community School in Sun Valley.

On Saturday afternoon, a Kids Kino Matinee is planned to "give kids an idea of what it’s like on the other side of the camera. The aim is to give them a sense of the much larger world. Stretch their understanding and imagination," said Rick Silverman, director of the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival.

Among the films to be shown during the matinee is "Skilletto," a Canadian film that follows the skill and thrill of one of the world’s greatest unicyclist, Kris Holm.

However, most of the program is very serious, Silverman said.

"It’s for people with very broad tastes, with passions about alpine life and the communities they birth, the environment, rivers, mountaineering, avalanches, cultures and the real life of geo-politics. And the beauty of film to convey all those messages."

The films vary in length from four minutes to about an hour, with the whole program lasting about three hours. Silverman will be on hand at each showing.

"I’ll try to convey something of what it feels like to be at the festival and put the films into a context that’s much richer. I can be a bridge between the filmmakers and audience."

In the 25^th year of the festival and the 12^th for Silverman as director, he still relishes the craft of filmmaking and discovering new ground.

"We mix it up. You can show a lot of different filmmakers’ brush strokes. And it will satisfy most people who really love film and the craft," Silverman said. "Film is a very effective way to make a case, sometimes an irrefutable case."

Silverman, who receives over 500 tapes a year from filmmakers, spends time "talking to filmmakers and production companies, and following films for two or three years over the course of their gestation. We really want to go in depth into ideas."

Friday night the program will have an emphasis on rivers and the decommissioning of dams. One such film, "Troubled Water" by George and Beth Gage, from Telluride, was shot in part in Idaho.

The movie "Killing Terraces," which is being featured on Saturday evening, is "doubly poignant," for Silverman, who just returned from Nepal where it was shot. "Most of us view Nepal as the most consummate mountain country. But it’s not much of a playground any more."

A customized show will be held at The Community School for two days as part of the school’s teachings of environmental responsibility and human rights protection.

"It’s a great opportunity, they approached us which was very flattering," said Craig Barry, director of the ERC. "You get the best of the best films. It’s storytelling with a heart." The ERC is hoping the collaboration will become an annual event.

"I like Ketchum and I like to collaborate with a local grassroots organizations, Silverman said. "One of the films ‘French Fries to Go,’ is a fabulous local environmental film by Charrass Ford. He’s this brilliant hip hop kind a guy, keeps the patter going. The movie is about converting spent oil from French fry makers into fuel. And it works."

Tickets for the shows are $12. The matinee on Saturday costs $5 for kids and $10 for adults. For more information, contact the ERC at 726-4333.

 

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