Peaking our interest: film fest taps into mountain mania

Like hosting the Beer City Film Festival at a GoodLife Fitness location or a National Rifle Association film screening at a liberal college, there’s something unusual about throwing a mountain film festival in one of the world’s flattest regions.

“We have Prairie roots, but we love mountain stories … (but) people always scoff at the fact that it’s a mountain film festival,” says Ivan Hughes, founder and curator of the Winnipeg International Mountain Film Festival.

Sister festival of the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival, the event — which showcases some of the world’s most exciting documentaries on climbing, skiing, mountaineering and the like — has its first edition this year.

“I always like to remind people that the Alpine Club of Canada started in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1906,” Hughes says.

At that time, Winnipeg was the “Chicago of the North,” one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities — and a gateway for eastern Canadians into western exploration and settlement. Completing the Canadian Pacific Railway and establishing the Banff National Park, both in 1885, helped turn the Rockies into a recreational landscape for groups like the Alpine Club of Canada.

With the Rockies a choice vacation spot today for so many Manitobans, many here have a special relationship to the mountains — Hughes among them.

The documentarian’s impressive credits in the mountain genre include Flatlanders: The 1992 Mount Manitoba Expedition, about the Manitoba chapter of the ACC (which included two Winnipeg Free Press reporters) and their attempt to ascend Mount Manitoba in the Yukon in 1992. The short, an adventurous tale complete with hairy escapes and avalanches sweeping up climbers, is part of a docuseries exploring Manitobans’ fascination with the mountains.

While Winnipeggers may have to wait for a future edition of the festival to see those films, Hughes has vetted eight international films this year to satisfy local flatlanders’ orophilia.

“I do the programming for the Vancouver Mountain Film Festival … so I get access to all the films that are on the circuit,” he says.

“These are really the best films that are out there that aren’t usually on tour.”

He highlights a couple of favourites from this year’s program.

One is K2 Mon Amour, which documents husband and wife Liv Sansoz and Zeb Roche as they pursue what for mere mortals would be not one, but two, loopy schemes: summiting the world’s second-tallest mountain without oxygen and hurling themselves off the summit, hand in hand, on a paraglider.

The things we do for love.

“What makes it really incredible for me is the fact that is the fact that it’s all, kind of, first-person day shot. It feels like you’re on the adventure with them,” says Hughes.

The trailer — with its avalanches, impossibly steep climbs and paraglider ridge-soaring along the Himalayans, all captured in panoramic detail that would be the envy of Red Bull TV — confirms this.

Another of Hughes’ faves is Girl Climber, a doc about Emily Harrington and her attempt to free-climb El Capitan in California’s Yosemite National Park in under 24 hours.

Ordinarily, even for elite climbers, this is a multi-day expedition with gear. Harrington chucked the ropes and harnesses and engaged in a hard, non-stop push, with zero margin for error.

“This film blows me away,” says Hughes. “It’s really a film about a female climber … trying to break into that (male-dominated) world. It’s, like, a six-year odyssey that she’s on.”

Extreme sports aren’t exactly known for attracting moderate personalities — they face not just extreme risk, injury, harsh conditions but often minimal financial support for their passion.

The soft-spoken Hughes may mostly work behind the lens, or in this case in the projection booth, though he understands and channels this passion.

“I always wanted there to be an adventure film festival here, from the moment I moved here,” he says. “I’ve got no funding. It’s all coming out of my pocket.”

There’s already a lot on offer this year, and he hopes this festival will eventually rival some of Canada’s most popular mountain film festivals.

“I really want to make this a real festival where we bring in top-notch international athletes to present,” he says.

“If we can make this a successful event, it’s just gonna get bigger in the future.”

winnipegfreepress.com/conradsweatman