By Laurelle Walsh
MountainFilm on Tour, select films from the 2014 Telluride MountainFilm Festival, travels to Winthrop for a showing in Mack Lloyd Park on Saturday (Aug. 23).
The gate opens at 7 p.m.; the films start at 8 p.m.
Tickets may be purchased at the event or online at squareup.com/market/north-cascades-mtn-hostel, $15 for adults, $10 for kids 18 and under. The film festival is hosted by North Cascades Mountain Hostel, whose owners will donate 10 percent of ticket sales to Friends of Fun Rock, according to hostel co-owner Paul Smotherman.
MountainFilm describes itself as “dedicated to educating, inspiring and motivating audiences about issues that matter, cultures worth exploring, environments worth preserving, adventures worth pursuing and conversations worth sustaining,” values shared by Smotherman and partner Audrey Jo Mills, they said.
The evening’s presenter is MountainFilm in Telluride Operations Director Crystal Geise, who will introduce and give some background on each short film.
Fourteen films are in the lineup, starting with 14.C, a film about young rock climber Kai Lighter. That will be followed by Tyler Howell, a film about a Santa Barbara downhill skateboarder; Wedge, a film about surfing the infamous Newport Beach wave; El Sendero Luminoso, featuring free solo climber Alex Honnold in Mexico; the 16-minute film Duke and the Buffalo, which documents the roundup of the largest conservation herd of bison in the United States; the animated short Fracking 101; the 25-minute documentary The Record Breaker; 64 MPH, which features a high-velocity backcountry ski descent; The Balloon Highline, a film about slacklining from a hot air balloon; A Life Well Lived: Jim Whittaker and 50 Years of Everest; Off-width Outlaw, about a climber and her quest to establish new routes in southeast Utah; the 40-minute feature Tashi and the Monk, a portrait of a Tibetan monk and the children at his orphanage in India; and Kelly McGarry Rampage, a 3-minute mountain biking film shot with a helmet-mounted GoPro camera.
Seating is on the grass in the park, and the hosts recommend bringing your own blanket, chair, snacks and beverages.
For more information, go to www.northcascadesmountainhostel.com/mountainfilm-on-tour-winthrop/.
