The BMX documentary The Birth of Big Air(part of ESPN’s30 for 30 documentary film series), directed by Jeff Tremaine and produced by Johnny Knoxville–both of Jackassfame, pays tribute to freestyle rider Mat Hoffman (“The Condor”) who has been instrumental for more than 20 years in progressing bike tricks, vertical-ramp riding, and helping to promote Freestyle BMX events worldwide.
At the Tribeca Film Festival, Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times interviews Hoffman, Tremaine, and Knoxville about the origins of their film, Matt’s experimental surgeries, and what it’s like to be knocked unconscious after an enormous jump:
180° South: Conquerors of the Useless: “In 1968, Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins set out to surf, ski and climb their way to Patagonia. The wild places they found later motivated them to protect the environment. Inspired by this journey, Jeff Johnson and Woodshed Films set sail on a voyage to South America to climb a mythical peak called Corcovado with Chouindard and Tompkins,” as told by Fletcher Chouinard.
The journey also was chronicled in a behind the scenes book of the same name, written by Yvon Chouinard and Chris Malloy and photographed Jeff Johnson.
The 2009 documentary “The Cove”–a film about a small Japanese fishing village (Taiji) where legal dolphin hunting still occurs–has won the Oscar for best documentary film at the 82nd Academy Awards. The Japanese government and mayor of Taiji, however, believe the movie has unfairly depicted the village’s long history and traditions of hunting the sea.
“In a statement reported by The Associated Press, the office of the mayor of Taiji defended the village’s practices and said ‘The Cove’ contained statements that were not based on science. ‘There are different food traditions within Japan and around the world,’ the statement said. ‘It is important to respect and understand regional food cultures, which are based on traditions with long histories,’” reports Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times.
Colorado-based outdoor filmmakers Travis Rummel and Ben Knight, along with TV fishing personality Frank Smethurst, travel to Russia’s remote Kamchatka Peninsula in search of “big, beautiful, mouse-crushing rainbow trout, super Kundzha (east Siberian Char), and Bigfoot in Russia’s far, far east.”
In 2006 two professional kayakers–Montana’s Seth Warren and Tyler Bradt–decided to travel (and paddle) more than 21,000 miles (Alaska to Argentina) in a red Toyota firetruck (“Baby”) which was retrofitted to run on vegetable oil. The highly regarded film Oil + Waterdocumented their environmental activism and adventure.
“In 1968, Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins set out to surf, ski and climb their way to Patagonia. The wild places they found later motivated them to protect the environment. Inspired by this journey, Jeff Johnson and Woodshed Films set sail on a voyage to South America to climb a mythical peak called Corcovado with Chouindard and Tompkins,” as told by Fletcher Chouinard.
The film is entitled 180° South: Conquerors of the Useless and also is a behind the scenes book of the same name, written by Yvon Chouinard and Chris Malloy and photographed Jeff Johnson.
Parts of the book were recently excerpted by the Wall Street Journal and are worth the read:
“It had taken us three days to get high enough to see a possible approach to Cerro Corcovado: a 10-mile Zodiac ride up a river that ruined three outboard props, an all-day rock-hop up a labyrinth of winding rivers, and miles of horrible bushwhacking. Half the time we thought we were lost. Yvon commented more than once, ‘I’m getting too old for this s—.’ Eventually, we made high camp at the last of four pristine lakes where we thought no one had been before – unless they’d dropped in by helicopter or airplane.”
Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times reports that British filmmaker and Academy Award winning director Danny Boyle, known for his work on the films Trainspottingand Slumdog Millionaire, has set his siteson the story of climber Aron Ralston who became trapped beneath an 800-pound boulder in Utah’s Blue John Canyon in 2003–eventually amputating his own arm to free himself.
The movie, entitled 127 Hours, will begin production in March in Utah and will star actor James Franco as the lead.
Frozen, directed by Adam Green, is a movie about a group of friends stranded for five days on a chair lift–horror, mayhem ensues.
“Assembled with greater economy than a Ralph Nader presidential campaign, ‘Frozen’ gains traction from a credible premise, above-average performances and the kind of modestly intuitive editing (by Ed Marx) that showcases the story and not itself,” writes Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times.
Inspired by the book of the same name, The Edge of Neveris a documentary about 15-year-old freeskier Kye Petersen, who travels to Chamonix, France, to ski the same challenging runs that took the life of his big-mountain skiing father, Trevor Petersen.
“It wasn’t a destiny that I felt [Kye] should ski [Chamonix], but I knew the path he was taking was ultimately going to lead him there. I wanted to be able to maybe help him along the way there.”
Salt Lake Tribunefeature on the documentary’s filmmaker and director Bill Kerig.
“Based on a true story, North Face is a gripping adventure drama about a competition to climb the most dangerous rock face in the Alps [the Eiger]. In July of 1936–less than a year after the most recent and fatal attempt, two top German mountaineers, Toni Kurz and Andi Hinterstoisser, take up the challenge to become the first to scale the infamous rock face, the so-called Murder Wall,” from NorthFaceTheMovie.com
“The Nazis loved mountain climbing. The whole idea of climbing fits into the way the Nazis saw death—dying for an ideal was a metaphor, that you could become a willing hero in the war against the rock. When you look at the early mountain movies, they are very symbolistic, with a visual type of language. They were connected to a German Romantic vision of nature, with the mountain as a character.”
