Trento Film Festival, Italy

May 3, 10PM, Cinema Modena – SALA 3
May 5, 3:30PM, Auditorium S. Chiara

http://www.trentofestival.it/

Banff World Tour

Helena, MT
May 6

http://www.thebasecamp.com/

Fayetteville, AK
September 16

http://www.fayettevillebanff.com/tickets.html

Scandinavia:
Stockholm, 21 and 22 september
Oslo 26 september
Gothenburg 28 and 29 september
Copenhagen 3 oktober
Malmö 4 oktober
Helsingfors 7 oktober

We had a great run in March, playing in 17 different theaters throughout the United States and the world!
Still haven’t had a chance to watch A Life Ascending? Here are even more locations to look forward to in April!

March Wrap Up: ALA comes to St. Louis, MO March 30!
April 2: Boone, NC: http://op.appstate.edu/banff
April 8: Downieville, CA: http://sierracountyartscouncil.org/archives/1760
April 9: Midland, MI: http://www.chippewanaturecenter.org/banff2011.htm
April 10: Slovenia: http://imffd.com/2011/film/134/
April 13: State College, PA: http://pennsylvania.sierraclub.org/moshannon/banff.html
April 19: Chicago, IL: https://tickets.fieldmuseum.org/public/show.asp
April 21: Eugene, OR: http://outdoorprogram.uoregon.edu/events/banff-mountain-film-festival/
April 22: Princeton, NJ: http://www.princeton.edu/~oa/special/

March Screenings:

3/5-3/6 Sheffield, UK (film festival)
3/6 Berkeley, CA
3/8 New York, NY
3/8 Larkspur, CA
3/9 Aspen, CO
3/10 San Francisco, CA
3/12 Los Altos, CA
3/12 Crested Butte, CO
3/13 Charlottesville, VA
3/17 KAFM Radio, CO
3/19 Anchorage, AK
3/22 San Diego, CA
3/23 Santa Fe, NM
3/26 Encinitas, CA
3/28 Santa Monica, CA

For more information on the specific city’s event/ticket purchases: Banff Centre

We just were accepted into the Trento FilmFestival,   the first Mountain Film Festival in the history of the world, started in 1954.   We are incredibly honored and excited about taking the film to arguably the most visible festival of Alpine Cinema.   The festival runs from april 28th – May 8th (perfect stop after you’ve done your yearly tour of the haute route) and includes a book festival, climbing exhibitions, speakers and a general gathering of many facets of the mountain world.   It was a secret hope of our to make it into this festival and now that we are in, we have to figure out how to get over there so we can take it in.    Let us know if you might be there.  Go to our facebook page and let us know:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Life-Ascending/110809198953743?ref=ts

A Life Ascending won the award for Best Film on Mountain Culture at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival.   The award came with some cash and a very cool abstract sculpture.  We werent able to attend but we made a little video acceptance speech where we went on google earth and zoomed in the theater in kendal to see where everyone was sitting.

The Banff World Tour will be in DC for four nights and A Life Ascending will be screened on Wednesday February 2, 2011.

HERE IS THE LINK

It should be  a really beautiful place to see the film, the Grosvenor Auditorium  1600 M Street, NW Washington, D.C., US 20036.

Here is the lineup for the evening.  Get tickets soon as the event often sells out.

The Banff Mountain Film Festival is one of the most important events on the annual film festival circuit, offering the best films on mountain sports and cultures. Now in its 35th year, the Banff Mountain Film Festival is presented in part by National Geographic, The North Face, and Parks Canada. Check out this year’s lineup below, and buy your tickets early for what is always one of the most popular events of the season! Some films contain graphic language.

Screenings for Wednesday, February 2

Life Cycles (USA/2010/14 min) This beautiful celebration of the bicycle is sure to amaze anyone who has ridden one.
A Life Ascending (USA/2010/57 min) Best Film on Mountain Culture/Peoples’ Choice Award. A top mountaineering guide lives with his family on a remote glacier in British Columbia.
Wildwater (USA/2010/25 min) An extraordinary journey into the mind and soul of whitewater, into the places only river runners go.
Stones Into Schools (USA/2010/12 min) A behind the scenes look at Greg Mortenson’s inspiring work to build schools in war-torn Afghanistan.
The Swiss Machine (USA/2010/20 min) A record-breaking speed alpinist takes his high-speed game to Yosemite.

Whistler Film Festival – Sat, Dec 4th at 6:30pm – Millennium Place

Anchorage International Film Festival - Mon, Dec 6th at 5:30pm – Bear Tooth Theatre

It started Halloween weekend. I brought the whole family up to Banff for the Mountain Film Festival, for what was to be a real homecoming for A Life Ascending. The film was born in Banff four years ago when I had the idea of making a film about the unique life the Beglingers live, with a backdrop of exploring loss and fear and beauty. I was also interested in my own attraction to risk and the affect mountains have on me. RRuedi and Nicoline, met me in Banff and after a couple days together they agreed to allow the project to go forward.
Within a month I was in Revelstoke with Roger Vernon shooting the first week of the adventure. Four days of snow shoveling and I thought, what the hell are we going to do with this: make a tutorial video on how to shovel off your roof, using a rope, a carabiner and a snow blower.
Over the next two years I would go back four more times with Pat Morrow, shooting climbing and skiing and life in the remote wild of Durrand glacier, and interviewing all the residents until they were blue in the face. Somewhere along the way I became convinced I had more than a tutorial. But I wasn’t sure exactly what.
The editing and music were another year and then it was time to let her out into the world.
Well this past week, it found a pinnacle in Banff as all of those days of the journey came flooding back into focus.
The story of the avalanche was a big story in Western Canada when it happened and everyone knows about it up there, so the film was on a lot of people’s radar.
As I walked to the Eric Harvie Theater at the Banff Centre on Saturday morning at around 11, sun shining hard, there was no one outside the building and I had a moment of panic, empty- theater panic.

That ended once I entered the complex and the lobby was packed with people waiting to get in. I was skirted back stage and into the theater to save some seats for my wife and kids and Sarah (the fabulous associate producer of the film). In the empty theater, I also found Roger and Pat, both in for the screening and both looking mountaineer dapper. It was a sweet reunion. Soon the doors were opened and the theater filled. There were about 750 people there, among them some very dear friends, Neil and Sarah Goldblatt and Andy and Betsy Baur who had made the trek from Colorado and Montana respectively.
I introduced the film sharing my excitement at this homecoming and away we went.
This huge projection and incredible sound system made this the purest and most beautiful screening in the life of the film. For me it was astonishing sitting in that theater and feeling the energy and anticipation of the crowd. It truly was a kind of dream come true. There is so much tedious work that goes into a project like this and you often wonder what is the point. But in that hour the point was very clear to me as people laughed and gasped and got quiet at the points I hoped they would.
At the Q and A, The Beglinger family came up on stage with Roger, Pat and me. The audience seemed so moved by the courage of the Beglingers for opening themselves so completely in the film that they rose to their feet in a standing ovation.
We had a reception at Bruno’s Bar and Grill in the afternoon with a number of locals who had helped out in the making of the film, including none other than Ben Gadd the great Canadian naturalist and author whose book is quoted in the movie. Author and mountaineer Geoff Powter also joined us, and Canadian Icon mountaineer Barry Blanchard who were both contributors on the film. We did shots of yager from a ski and celebrated in true Canadian style.
Susan and I left with the kids the next morning to get back to LA in time to go trick or treating. As I left Banff, I wondered when I would have the privilege to be back in those incredible mountains sharing the warmth of these wonderful people.
Wednesday we all flew to Florida for the Fort Lauderdale international Film Festival. Thursday night the film played in the pastel hued and palm tree lined Cinema Paradiso theater to a great crowd of a couple hundred. It was such a great audience who was seeing into a world so different and in many ways unimaginable to them. I flew home on Friday to get back to town for the Ojai Film Festival on the weekend.
And then on Saturday as I was on my way up to Ojai I received an email from Banff: the subject line reading confidential. They were letting me know the film was going to win an award the next night at the closing awards event for Best Film on Mountain Culture.
It didn’t take me very long to figure I had to cash in some miles and fly up for it. I woke on Sunday at 5 and caught a crack-of-dawn flight. So there I was, back in Banff a week after I wondered when I would be there again. I got to the festival Sunday afternoon and it was in full swing, movies playing, people milling about, and a trade shows. I snuck in and found Pat and his amazing wife Baiba, and then found Ruedi and his family. They were all in on the secret. I watched a couple cool films. After a dinner at the Banff Centre with Pat and Baiba, we went to the big theater for the awards evening. This time there was not an empty seat in the house. 1000 people get tickets to this event because after the awards show they screen all the winners.
I had thought the weekend before was beyond imagination but this night would match it. The first award was a grant of $10,000 of post production services for a current or future film given to a film that showed excellence in post production audio and sound design. They gave it to A Life Ascending. Gulp. I was so surprised as I was sitting nervously in the audience trying to think what I was going to say at my award. I walked up there and stumbled out half of that speech knowing I had to save something to say for the next one. They took me back stage, and someone from Timex (one of the sponsors) gave me this really cool expedition watch. (Which my son has his eye on already) They took some pictures and then the Best Film on Mountain Culture award was given so they sent me back out on stage.
I told the crowd I was going to move to Banff and I meant it. In my overwhelmed state I forgot to thank the judges for their voting but I did manage to thank Pat, Roger and then spoke about the courage and openness of the Beglingers and how this film never would have worked without their honesty.
I finally got to sit down again for the rest of the show. And then just as it was winding up they announced the People’s Choice, Audience Award and the film won again. Ruedi came up on stage with me and we had an incredible moment there, sharing in the award. Immediately following the awards, they started the film and ALA was up first. We sat and watched it one more time in that beautiful theater, with that awesome sound system before sneaking out to the festival wrap party. I finally crashed at 1am and woke at 4am to head back to Calgary and fly back to life. It was a truly unbelievable week and one I am still trying to take in.

Its hard to know where to start, everything about last weekend was so wonderful. A radio interview in the morning with CBC, followed by a great reunion with some old friends and the guests of honor, Ruedi, Nicoline, Florina, and Charlotte (the subjects of the film) It was so wonderful to see them after a couple of years and we all were happy, and nervous about the day to come. I was of course worried as always about turn out. But as I got to the theater, the lobby was packed with people. It was a blue sky day and I thought oh they ll all be out hiking but it turns out that there was a lot of interest in the film. The theater is huge and I was immediately met by Joni Cooper the head programmer of the festival who was so friendly and encouraging about the film. I then ran into Pat, one of the very talented cinematographers. We went in to save some seats and inside we found Roger the other very talented cinematographer. We got all set up and they started letting the people in. Within about ten minutes the place was nearly full numbering about 750 people. We watched a cool movie on grizzlies first and a short ski huck film and the main event. The projection and sound were the best I have experienced with this film. The audience was in it from the beginning, laughing and gasping at all the right places. People were quiet during the credits and when they called us up for a Q and A no one left the room which was surprising. People were riveted as Ruedi, Nicoline, Florina And Charlotte,went up on stage. I joined them with Pat and Roger and we had a short Q and A. At the end of it, the audience gave us standing ovation.
That was such an amazing moment. The film had truly come home, to the place where I first met with Ruedi and Nicoline to discuss the idea four years ago. Banff is four hours from where all of the events of the movie happened and everyone knows about it. So it was a true homecoming and a great one.

The film screening at banff has been changed to saturday.  hope some of you can come.   we are in the big theater and hope to fill it.

It should be a great event.