Mountainfilm bringing stories of awe, inspiration

The Mountainfilm Festival is a Memorial Day Weekend tradition in Telluride, Colorado. It’s an all-documentary event, with a focus on inspirational stories – short, independently-made docs about people who work to overcome adversity, or to make the world better, most if not all in the great (and cinematic) outdoors.

Mountainfilm docs are famously breathtakingly beautiful – as well as inspirational. The festival has had 43 years to perfect its unique formula of nature and nurture.

In 1999, someone had the bright idea to send highlights from each year’s event around the country. Because these are short, non-commercial films, they aren’t likely to get screened on TV; why not bring them to Middle America, to locales that don’t have the awe-inspiring Rocky Mountains as a backdrop?

Thus was born Mountainfilm on Tour. The 2022 edition will visit St. Petersburg’s Palladium Theater Sunday, Oct. 30 in two iterations: An hour-long matinee for families at 11 a.m., followed by a “main event” at 1:30. The latter will include live performances from the Arts Conservatory For Teens.

All tickets are available here.

The family matinee will include these kid-friendly films:

Adventures at Home (USA, 4 minutes); The Train Station (Canada,  2 minutes); Antonese, The Bahamas, 9 minutes); Little Forest (Argentina, 8 minutes); Shaba (USA, UK, 12 minutes); Julieta & the Turtles in the Plastic Soup, The Netherlands, 15 minutes); This is Home: Jackson Goldstone (Canada, 8 minutes).

The following titles will be screened during the afternoon session (descriptions provided by Mountainfilm). All films are USA-produced unless indicated:

Ascend: Reframing Disability in the Outdoors: Vasu Sojitra doesn’t want to be called an inspiration. For the Indian-American right leg amputee, it’s not his disability, but instead, the barriers to access the outdoors that must be overcome. His ascent and ski descent of iconic Mount Moran’s “The Skillet,” alongside other mountain athletes of color, brings solidarity and intersectionality to backcountry skiing. 12 minutes.

Breaking Trail. Emily Ford sets out with a borrowed Husky sled dog, Diggins, to complete the 1,200-mile Ice Age Trail in the midst of winter. Not only is she the first woman to attempt the feat, but she is also the first LBGTQ+ person of color to embark on the adventure. 30 minutes.

Loon. Mike Freed, now in his 80s, chose the name Loon as a symbol of the spirit of the wild, interconnected lakes of his Minnesota homeland. The Appalachian Trail is also where Loon had a revelation about what course of action to take with his 2,000-acre expanse of unfragmented land in the pristine Boundary Waters. 10 minutes.

JanWaar: Skateboarding is the ideal disruptor for the youth of Madhya Pradesh, one of the poorest states in India. (11 minutes).

Wood Hood: Inner-city youth on a group camping trip with Camping to Connect, a BIPOC-led mentorship program that teaches leadership, brotherhood and inclusion in the outdoors. (16 minutes).

Bacon ‘N’ Laces: A blind single father of three manages a classic diner outside of New York City. (20 minutes.

Flow: Skier Sam Favret embarks on an adventure of epic proportions, traversing the slopes of a closed ski resort. (France, 5 minutes).

Fight or Flight: The journey of the first female pilot employed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife (14 minutes).

The Ocean Solution: Bren Smith isn’t just redefining ocean farming, he’s literally turning it upside down. (Canada, 14 minutes).

Fuel: For Alta professional skier Madison Rose Ostergren, big mountain skiing is a form of personal expression (6 minutes).