Filed under: Press releases | Tags: Chamonix, film events, Make Your Own Legends, The Adventure Film Festival
The Adventure Film Festival got started in Chamonix when American mountaineer Jonny Copp came here, as many of us do, to enjoy the great outdoors and some of the best mountains in the world. Once here, he proposed to his friends in Boulder – another outdoorsy, naturalistic area – that they extend their film festival to Chamonix. He argued that there are a lot of similar people out here – adventurers, artists, activists – who believe in the power of story, especially the narrative of awakening to change, portraying the world we want to live in, abiding by a respect for nature and practicing conservation, always. The festival’s slogan of ‘Making Your Own Legends’ is not only about epic challenges, it’s also about the daily challenges all of us face as we try to build a healthy, positive world to live in: we create our own stories of risking, losing and winning–or simply surviving and prevailing!
It didn’t take long to convince the group in Boulder to extend the festival idea to Chamonix, as the vision had always been about developing a ‘world community.’ When Jonny died in a climbing accident, friend and fellow climber Zoe Hart took over as Director of the festival in Chamonix. “His vision was to grow it (the festival), like a seedling in the garden, and pass it on to the local community to grow into whatever it would become with Chamonix sun, water, love and care,” says Zoe. Today, Zoe and festival volunteers – with nationalities ranging from French and British, Canadian, American, German, Swiss, Finnish, Swedish, Australian, Norwegian, Flemish – are working together to make the festival a permanent international event based in Chamonix.
Alliances such as the one involving the Adventure Film Festival organisers, volunteers, town officials and local merchants, are established because of a shared cause. Let’s hope this alliance, now in its second year, grows over the years to come, not only because there’s no reason why it shouldn’t, but also because we need to encourage and nurture all the culture we can get in Chamonix.
The 2nd annual Adventure Film Festival will be taking place again this year on August 20, 21st & 22nd at the Bicentennaire, Chamonix-Mont Blanc. For tickets, schedules and further details of films and events, please visit www.adventurefilm.org or contact Zoe Hart at zoe@adventurefilm.org
Filed under: Press releases | Tags: Chamonix, Cinemavox Chamonix, French Alps, Kendal Mountain Festival, La Montagne Fait Son Cinema
The second of the La Montagne Fait Son Cinéma movies is showing on Wednesday night at the Cinema Vox.
The mountain film series La Montagne Fait Son Cinéma has been put together by Association des Amis du Cinéma, and is inspired by a book about films shot in and around Chamonix. The series showcases films by local directors, climbing and mountaineering documentaries, and a few recent productions, including a film from the Kendal Mountain Festival.
“The Blizzard of Aahhhs”, is a “Rock-u-mentary” style “cult classic” from 1988 that profiles little-known and famed heroes of the ski world, from Chamonix Valley to Squaw Valley in California, in a humorous and personal manner. The first of its kind, “The Blizzard of Aahhhs” is cited as the inspiration to reside in Chamonix from many current expats living in the valley.
Guest Glen Plake, one of the skiers in “The Blizzards of Aahhhs” and also one of the judges in this week’s Nissan Outdoor Games, made a name for himself with his huge Mohawk and punk style of skiing, and is still a passionate enthusiast who spends half his year in Chamonix.
Filed under: Press releases | Tags: Adventure Film Festival, Boulder film, Chamonix, French Alps
With the success of its first year in Chamonix, the 2nd annual Adventure Film Festival will be taking place again this year on August 20 & 21st at Le Majestic, Centre de Congres, Chamonix Mont Blanc. Dedicated to independent short films featuring adventure and an environmental conscientiousness, the theme is Make Your Own Legends.
Embracing the unknown, taking risks, making sacrifices, appreciating nature and the power of the human spirit, the Adventure Film Festival has found an ideal home in Chamonix – the birthplace of Alpinism, a winter sports Mecca, and the international playground for extreme sport.
Created in 2004 by adventurers and filmmakers in Boulder, Colorado, the Adventure Film Festival now shares the spirit of passion and activism inherent in outdoor adventure, by holding an annual festival in Santiago, Chile as well as Chamonix and Boulder. The festival reviews more than 200 films submissions each year, and this year brings you another amazing program of short films.
From a gorgeous film about a Bangladesh Surf Club that will bring tears to your eyes and a smile to your lips as they create a community through surfing, to a beautifully shot film about an arborist in Oregon who climbs massive trees and lives his philosophy on the role of trees in culture, to recovered footage of the fatal climb of Mt Edgar’s eastern face by climbers Jonny Copp, Micah Dash and Wade Johnson, this year’s festival promises you thrills.
Come join us at the Adventure Film Festival over the two days it visits Chamonix, and share with others the power, poignancy, challenges and humour of some of the best and most inspiring adventure films from around the world.
Adventure Film Festival is made possible by sponsorship from Patagonia, and in partnership with Mairie de Chamonix Mont Blanc and the Office of Tourism, Chamonix Mont Blanc.
Because Adventure Film Festival’s missions and direction coincide with the organisation Leave No Trace, an international non-profit dedicated to conscious recreation and environmental education, we are promoting “Activism through Adventure.”
For tickets, schedule and details of events and films, please visit www.adventurefilm.org or contact Zoe Hart at zoe@adventurefilm.org
Filed under: Press releases | Tags: Bellingham, Karl Abramovic, Mural, Pacific Northwest
Who’s the Monkey?
California artist Karl Abramovic has arrived in Bellingham to create its newest mural for the soon-to-be opened State Street Depot Bar & Grill, located at 1327 N. State St.
Raised in Oregon by conscientious educators before moving as an adult to California, Abramovic’s artwork incorporates western American themes and eastern European motifs in an expressive, surreal and farcical style. A prolific artist, Abramovic has won much recognition and numerous awards for his murals, oil paintings, pastels and drawings.
The State Street Depot Bar & Grill’s mural is inspired by the fact that the location was home to the town’s Greyhound Bus Depot in the 1930’s. Abramovic’s design evokes the nostalgia created by this era, its transience and its hope, its hardship and its glamour. These poignant tensions are treated in a whimsical fashion by Abramovic.
Ben Gilmer, owner of Bellingham’s newest night spot, plans to use the vintage bus depot theme to create an exciting environment that suggests a small town’s reclusive location in the middle of dense Pacific Northwest forests, yet its worldly contact with numerous travelers passing through it to and from Canada, and up and down the West Coast.
For information about Karl Abramovic and his work, please visit http://www.americansurreal.com
Filed under: Press releases
Manifesto for Creative London North
‘True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; the compassionate come to know that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.’ Martin Luther King
- Creative London North realizes that even as we do not operate in a feudal society anymore, modern society has created new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle to take the place of old ones and this needs to change now.
- Creative London North will not be another short-term initiative whose funding dries up as soon as it begins to work.
- Creative London North is not developed by disenfranchised bureaucrats, but those who have lived and operated in the world of creative commerce.
- Creative London North operates as a practical approach to the creative industries, even as it understands some need more support than others and therefore has a variety of programs for all levels through a vast network of partner organizations.
- Creative London North functions on the premise that it takes time to hone your craft and build a career.
- Creative London North is committed to those that are committed to helping themselves and taking responsibility for themselves. It does not reinforce the soft bigotry of low expectations.
- Creative London North is the opportunity for like-minded individuals, from beginners to those farther along in the process and needing introduction to the industry, to receive guidance, feedback and real help to produce something tangible.
- Creative London North is adaptive and responsive with those it works services, which means that it is not a one-way ‘conversation’ of programs and administrators, but a perpetual ‘tweaking’ of the programs in order to deliver what is relevant.
- Creative London North understands that the pseudo feudal system for the creative industries, in which production is monopolized by a few closed guilds and organizations, now no longer suffices for the growing wants and abilities of the global market.
Victoria Jelinek 