Snow night, the first night of the Alpinist Film Festival, was a sold out showing of six films. The People’s Choice winner for the evening was Let It Ride: The Craig Kelly Story, which chronicled snowboarding legend Craig Kelly’s life and his influence on snowboarding’s development. [Photo] David Swift
Jackson, Wyoming – January 18, 2008 – Last night, January 17, the Alpinist Film Festival opened with its signature Snow Night to a full house at the Walk Festival Hall in Teton Village, Wyoming. Six films were presented, and when the People’s Choice ballots were counted, Let It Ride: The Craig Kelly Story had won the title by a decisive victory.
Let It Ride is an acclaimed celebration of the life of Craig Kelly, the world’s most recognized snowboarding icon during the sport’s formative years. The film evokes Kelly’s quiet leadership that continually redefined the sport until he and six others were caught in a massive avalanche near Revelstoke, British Columbia.
“The audience had a tough decision to make,” admitted AFF director Christian Beckwith. “But it’s not surprising that such a full-bodied film–funny, exhilarating, powerful and tragic–would capture the hearts of the audience.”
Along with the People’s Choice Award winners for Surf Night, January 18, and Stone Night, January 19, Let It Ride will be presented at the People’s Choice Ceremonies, held in Jackson at the Center for the Arts on January 20, 2008. The three audience-selected films will have a shot at the 2008 Alpinist Film Festival Grand Prize. The audience will choose the Grand Prize winner at the January 20 Ceremony.
The filmmakers of Let It Ride will receive a $750 gift certificate from Patagonia for winning Snow Night’s People’s Choice Award. People’s Choice winners of the next two evenings will receive the same, and the Grand Prize winner will receive an additional Patagonia gift certificate worth $1,500.
The other five films shown were Versus, Speed Riding: Attack a Popow Land, Speed Riding: Attack of the Gringos, Mountain Town: The Grasshopper and Solilochairliftquist. They were presented by Olympic skier Resi Stiegler, who opened the festivities with a tribute to eleven of Jackson Hole’s winter Olympians–including her father, Pepi Stiegler–ten of whom were present at Snow Night.
Mark Barron, Mayor of Jackson, made his fourth Alpinist Film Festival appearance, opening the night and praising the Alpinist Film Festival and Patagonia, the official 2008 Alpinist Film Festival Green Sponsor, for their eco-conscious carbon neutral initiatives.
Tickets for The 2008 Alpinist Film Festival are $18 for the Snow, Surf and Stone nights and $20 for the People’s Choice Ceremonies. Tickets and additional information can be found online at www.alpinist.com/film_festival. To date, every event in The Alpinist Film Festival’s three-year history has sold out.
About The Alpinist Film Festival
The Alpinist Film Festival celebrates the adventure lifestyle across disciplines and generations with three nights of film in skiing, surfing and climbing. The Festival’s mission is to advance the art of cinematographic storytelling as it underscores the unity among the adventure lifestyle communities. A portion of every year’s proceeds are donated to charities that help preserve the places of our inspiration. Because one of these places is our planet, beginning in 2008, the Festival will purchase carbon offsets to counteract its carbon footprint.
About Alpinist Magazine
Hailed by Italian climbing legend Reinhold Messner as “The best climbing magazine in the world today,” Alpinist Magazine is an archival-quality, quarterly publication dedicated to world alpinism and adventure climbing. The pages of Alpinist capture the art of ascent in its most powerful manifestations, presenting an articulation of climbing and its lifestyle that matches the intensity of the pursuit itself. Alpinist has been awarded three Maggie Awards, for Best Quarterly/Consumer Division, Best Overall Design, and Best Electronic Newsletter, and was featured in a seven-page article in Outside Magazine (“The Purists”) in March 2005. The magazine’s editorial and publishing offices are based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and online at www.alpinist.com.