The Adventure Film Festival Announces the 2018 Official Selections

Adventure Film Festival 2018 in Boulder, Colorado announces its official selections.

Its award-winning lineup of filmmakers, athletes and conversationalists will take you out to the little-known marine wonderlands of West Papau, inland to surf Lake Superior's winter waves, then home to Colorado's own Longs Peak. You'll join a band of Puerto Rican climbers providing aid to hurricane victims, peek through the iris of an adventure photographer's camera and into her deepest fears, and enter the heart of climbing legend Conrad Anker as his career winds the way of wisdom. From ultramarathoners to NASA scientists, folk rock to rock climbing. . . . no two films have the same stripes; each is crafted to shift the way we view our world and ourselves.

Tales By Light 3 (44:45 min) Director: Abraham Joffe ACS Shawn is an Emmy Award-winning cinematographer, photographer and marine conservationist. Recognizing that people only protect what they love, he is on a mission to capture inspiring and dramatic imagery that connects the global community to the beauty and vulnerability of threatened marine species.

Climbing Out of Disaster (8:30 min) Director: Dominic Gill In the hours after the devastating hurricanes of 2017, members of the Puerto Rican climbing community mobilized, joining forces to put their rope and outdoor skills to use. This shortfollows these amateur climbers as they help neighbors, clear trees and roads, and even solve "urban bouldering problems"-all amidst the disaster's major search and rescue operations.

CONFLUENCE (55 min) Directors: Amy Marquis & Dana Romanoff The Colorado River makes a deep imprint both on the landscape it carves and the people whose lives it flows through. Confluence follows an up-and-coming indie folk band as they traverse and document this endangered river system, using music to translate its story.

RJ Ripper (19:25 min) Directors: Joey Schusler, Aidan Haley & Ben Page Kids and bikes-wherever you are in the world, they go together. The streets of Kathmandu may not seem like a typical breeding ground for world-class mountain bikers, but then again nothing is typical about Rajesh (RJ) Magar. From learning to ride on a self-constructed clunker, to becoming a four-time Nepalese national champion by age 21, RJ's story is one of childhood dreaming and unstoppable determination, forged from junkyard SCRAPS and tested on the rugged trails of the mighty Himalaya.

Surfer Dan (7:50 min) Director: Tim Kemple For the intrepid SURFING communities around the shores of Lake Superior, the words of local Dan Schetter say it all: "It's dangerous. It's not like some clean, perfect ocean wave you stand up and come out of. There's ice chunks falling on my head.... It's a race ... to get to the wave before the ice fills in."

Hold Fast (54:40 min) Director: Jim Aikman Conrad Anker is one of the greatest and most notorious professional mountain climbers in history. But at 54, his career in the big mountains is winding down, especially after suffering a heart attack on a climb high in THE HIMALAYAS in 2016. His friend Alex Wildman is a novice big-wall climber and cardiac nurse who recently recovered from stage 4 lymphoma and intense chemotherapy. With new perspectives on life, both are eager to return to the mountains. Together, they team up to support each other on returning to a longtime favorite: El Capitan. On its iconic granite walls, they both seek to put their traumatic brushes with mortality in the past.

Wild Ice (3 min) Produced by: Paxson Woelber & Cale Green First tracks are always an allure for those who partake in winter sports. To the backcountry ice-skating community, it's no different. Filmed across Southern Alaska, "Wild Ice" showcases figure skaters, speed skaters and hockey players in their native element: ice caves, mountain lakes and glacial lagoons.How to Run 100 Miles (28 min) Director: Brendan Leonard The odds were stacked against Jayson Sime early in life: poverty, homelessness, dyslexia, bullying. But he learned to fight, literally and metaphorically, and battled his way to a successful career as a political organizer. In 2017, he entered his first 100-mile mountain ultramarathon, betting on his lifelong resilience to carry him to the finish line.

A Letter to Congress (3:15 min) Director: Christopher Newman This film is a short visual narration of Wallace Stegner's 1960 "Letter to Congress." As public lands become threatened across the country, Stegner's words seem as prescient as ever.

In Perpetual Motion (4:30 min) Director: Krystle Wright This short film that features the work of Krystle Wright as she explores the interface between passion/obsession, life/work, adventure/isolation-the blurred lines ubiquitous to adventure photography.

Dear Mr. President (4:10 min) Directors: James Q Martin & Chris Cresci "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" -Socrates "I believe there is weather, I believe there is change, and I believe it goes up and it goes down and it goes up again and it changes depending on the years and centuries." -Donald Trump "Burning all these fossil fuels creates carbon dioxide into our atmosphere and gets stuck." -Diego, 12

Valley of the Moon (22 min) Director: Henna Taylor One of earth's most distinctive landscapes, the Wadi Rum has been made famous both for its Bedouin history and its cameos in films, from Lawrence of Arabia to Star Wars. This film follows the longstanding dream of two Israeli climbers and their local guide as they attempt to build a new fame for this valley: as a climbing and eco-tourism paradise.

The Passage (25 min) Director: Nathan Dappen 1974 was a year of legend for the Dappens: the young couple built their own canoes, launched them from Washington, and became some of the first people to paddle the Inside Passage to Alaska. Not surprisingly, tales of this voyage later captured their sons' imaginations. In 2017, the Dappens sought to recreate the adventure as a family-renovating those old canoes, and retracing their 1974 route. "The Passage" is a story about the dreams of aging brothers, fathers, and sons, and the wild places that come to define entire families.Katie (9:43 min) Director: Ben Knight In 1953, Hollywood starlet and folk singer Katie Lee embarked on her first of many river trips through the Grand Canyon. From that moment, until her passing last November, her life was shaped by a duty to protect the beauty of those canyon walls, and she became a passionate activist against the damming of the Colorado River. "Katie" is a tribute film, honoring the life of a champion for places untouched by mankind.

Adventure Not War (24:50 min) Director: Max Lowe From half a world away, our perception of Iraq is largely informed by the images portrayed in media coverage of war, suicide bombings, and political strife. This film follows the story of three U.S. veterans as they venture back to discover the natural and cultural beauty of Iraq absent the shadow of war.

Feel of Vision (26 min) Directors: Tucker Gragg & Austin Gardner After losing his eyesight in a 1997, Lonnie Bedwell described his blindness as a wall that prevented him from living a full life, until he discovered kayaking-the door that opened back up the world for him. Later, he became the first blind kayaker to navigate the Grand Canyon in a solo kayak. Today, Lonnie spends his time engaging fellow blind paddlers in the spray and white foam of the Ohioplye and YELLOWSTONE wilderness-leading them to that doorway, so that they too can create their own vision of the life ahead.

Near Miss (11:30 min) Director: Josh Berry This beautiful, meditative story takes us swimming with Great Whites along with a diver who is at peace with the incredible risks that he takes.

Colors of Change (21:27 min) Director: Jenny Nichols This film illustrates the intersection of art, culture and Science in a region defined by climate change. It follows artist Zaria Forman as she returns to her homeland of Greenland, seeking the wisdom of NASA scientists, an Inuit elder, and her late mother.

The Mirnavator (11:05 min) Director: Sarah Menzies "I love my body the most when I am out running. Even if it's hard, and even if I'm having a bad day. . . . I know I have my body, and it works, and I feel really strong and powerful. And in that, I feel beautiful." -Mirna ValerioI'm Here (4:30 min) Director: Nick Edwards Kate examines the complexities of her roles as a snow scientist, an individual and an athlete. Longs Peak serves as the ultimate mental and physical playground in her exploration of balance.

CHOICES (20:30 min) Director: Teresa Hoerl Steph Davis chooses passion. She quit law school in her early twenties to pursue climbing, ticking newsworthy ascents from Yosemite to Patagonia. While living in her car in Utah, she discovered her second calling: BASE jumping. Although she's suffered many losses, Steph never regrets choosing an unconventional way of life-one full of extraordinary choices, where what seems to be a wrong decision at first can turn out to be the right one.

REAL ROCK: An Urban Climbing Experience (10:30 min) Director: Drew Herder In the last 100 years, humans have discovered no new mountains. But . . . we've built so many new buildings. As the last remaining first ascents are claimed on the mountains of the world, there's only one direction climbing can go: to the cities.

The Space Within (5:30 min) Director: Frank Pickell Exploring the tidepools of a deserted tropical beach, a young boy finds a mysterious treasure washed up on the rocks. It whispers of another world, holding magic unlike anything he has seen before.

Brighter Night (5:15 min) Director: Jordan Halland Filmmaker Jordan Halland and his team hike deep into Alaska's Mendenhall Glacier to capture ice climbing in a new light. Filmed entirely at night in sub-arctic temperatures, "Brighter Night" is the result of an idea filmmaker Jordan Halland hasn't been able to shake since his first shot on a glacier almost a decade ago. He knew one day he would be back to use the natural qualities of the ice to his cinematic advantage.

Blue Carbon: A story from the Snohomish estuary (5:45 min) Directors: Benjamin Drummond & Sara Joy Steele Restore America's Estuaries recently led a first-of-its-kind study in Snohomish to quantify the local and global benefits that can be achieved through estuary restoration. This film builds awareness of blue carbon as a climate change mitigation tool, awakening the public to the potential benefits of investment in wetland restoration at local, state and federal levels.Craig's Reaction (24:20 min) Director: Cameron Maier Since a 100-foot fall that took his right leg and left him with spinal injuries in 2002, Colorado climber Craig DeMartino has been undeterred in his adventure pursuits, bagging lauded First Disabled and In-A-Day Ascents on El Capitan. But-it is his day-to-day life that should be making the headlines.

The Frenchy (14:20 min) Director: Michelle Smith Jacques "The Frenchy" Houot is an ageless wonder: when he's not competing on the cyclocross circuit, he's probably on his mountain bike, or his skis. But BEYOND his immortal athleticism, Jacques' legacy is truly represented by his love of life, tales of survival, ability to counter aging with laughter, and his impact on the local community.

Creek Sessions (6:30 min) Director: Tahria Sheather Artistic inspiration is often drawn from nature, and in Jessica Kilroy's experience, the natural sounds of Indian Creek, UT provide the perfect recording studio-from the chorus of coyotes, to the strumming of yucca. "Creek Sessions" is an audial homage to one of the many wild areas currently under threat by natural resource extraction.

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