A capacity audience celebrates during Snow Night, January 17, at the 2008
Alpinist Film Festival in Jackson, Wyoming. On April 11, the AFF will travel
to Bend, Oregon, to present an exclusive screening of some of the favorite
films from January’s master festival. [Photo] David Swift
Jackson, Wyoming – March 21, 2008: The Alpinist Film Festival announced today that it will present an exclusive, one-night screening at the Tower Theatre in Bend, Oregon, on Friday, April 11. This unique event, the first screening of the AFF outside its home in Jackson Hole, will retain the master festival’s signature elements, including a cocktail hour with New Belgium beer, a live DJ and a silent auction, as it screens more than two hours of award-winning films.
Each winter in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, The Alpinist Film Festival celebrates the adventure lifestyle across disciplines and generations with three nights of skiing, surfing and climbing films. The Festival’s mission–to advance the art of cinematographic storytelling as it underscores the unity among the adventure lifestyle communities–is complemented by its philanthropic focus: a portion of every year’s proceeds are donated to charities that help preserve places adventure athletes like to play. Because one of these places is the planet, the Festival is a carbon-neutral event, using carbon offsets to counteract its carbon footprint.
The fourth annual AFF, held January 17-20, 2008 in Jackson Hole, featured for the first time a fourth evening: The People’s Choice Ceremonies. In Bend, the lineup for the evening will showcase a number of the 2008 AFF People’s Choice award-winning films, many of which were US or world premieres. Peter Mortimer’s Diamonds Are Forever, featuring world-renowned rock climber Steph Davis on her free solo of the Diamond, won the People’s Choice Award for Stone Night. Snow Night’s Mountain Town: The Grasshopper, which highlights the charming and humble telemark skiing phenomenon Nick Devore, was one of the audience favorites from Snow Night. Audiences also applauded The Beckoning Silence (the film adaptation of Joe Simpson’s bestselling book), which follows Simpson to the North Face of the Eiger. And the surf film/social documentary Sliding Liberia, which accompanies a group of surfers to Liberia in search of perfect waves, won both the People’s Choice Award for Surf Night and the Grand Prize Award for the entire 2008 AFF.
The Bend event, to be held at the Tower Theatre, will retain a key element of the master festival with a party kick off at 6 p.m. Food, wine and New Belgium beer will be available, and DJ Barisone will spin tunes to get the crowd in the mood for the films that follow. Audience members will be able to bid on a wide selection of items during the silent auction, proceeds from which will benefit SurfAid International, the 2008 AFF’s featured non-profit. Films, which begin at 7 p.m., will be presented by Christian Beckwith, editor-in-chief of Alpinist Magazine and the director of the Film Festival.
“Bringing The Alpinist Film Festival to Bend is a great opportunity for us to share our event with other outdoor communities,” said Beckwith. “When the Tower Theatre approached us about co-hosting a one-night event, and were willing to work with us to retain the look and feel of the master festival, it was an easy decision. Bend is a community with similarities to our own, and we think the audience will really enjoy the event.”
Thanks to presenting and green sponsor The North Face, the Bend screening of The Alpinist Film Festival will be a carbon-neutral event. The event’s estimated carbon footprint will be offset with the purchase of high-quality carbon credits generated by renewable energy projects.
A number of additional sponsors, including the Hosting Sponsor, Mt. Bachelor, will join Alpinist and the Tower Theatre Foundation in bringing the event to the Bend Tower Theatre on Friday, April 11th.
Tickets for The 2008 Alpinist Film Festival at the Tower Theatre are $18. Tickets and additional information can be found online at www.alpinist.com/film_festival or www.towertheatre.org. To date, every event in The Alpinist Film Festival’s four-year history has sold out.
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.
About the Tower Theatre Foundation
The Tower Theatre is operated by the Tower Theatre Foundation, a non-profit 501(c) 3. Donations and community support enable the Foundation to provide an affordable community facility to a broad range of local non-profits, diverse and high-quality entertainment and to allow for the continued care of Bend’s beautiful historic theatre.