Mountain bikers, rock climbers, skiers, whitewater kayakers and more are invited to view the "best of the fest" from the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival (VIMFF) here in Squamish.
Award-winning picks from the weeklong festival in February will be showcased at the Howe Sound Brew Pub on Thursday and Friday (April 7 and 8) and VIMFF production manager Kelly Green feels Squamish is the ideal community for such an event.
"I love the conscious community in Squamish," she said. "People are here to follow their passions and do what they love, challenge their minds and bodies in a healthy environment. The films reflect this sentiment and push the physical and filmmaking limits."
Green's personal favourite is Azadi: Freedom, which won the Best Canadian Film Award.
The film documents a crew's travels into the mountains surrounding the Gulmarg Ski Resort to capture the aesthetic beauty of the landscape and the livelihoods of a people eager to dispel the stigma that Kashmir is a dangerous place to travel.
"The skiers in the film are so passionate, even though the mountain opens at 10 a.m., and you can totally relate to them any ski bum in Squamish can relate to them," she said.
Azadi: Freedom is one of 11 films that will be shown over the course of two evenings and Green wasn't the only fan.
Sarah Stroh, who attended the ski evening in Vancouver, also named Azadi: Freedom as a favourite.
"It was wild to see that the ultimate love of skiing (and a great set of powder skis) transcends culture, border and landscape," said Stroh, who added Skiing the Unlikely to her list of favourites and commending the festival in general.
"What a neat evening," she said. "The theatre was packed with people who wore the MEC-stained clothes and the bumps, bruises and broken bones of those who love to play outside."
Green promised the Squamish evening would be the same or better, adding that the beauty of a town like Squamish is that everyone does a bit of everything - climbers also bike, bikers also windsurf and skiers also whitewater kayak.
"It generally means that everyone can appreciate all the mountain genres of films," she said.
"There will be a great mix of films and brews for this event, from rock climbing to backcountry skiing, mountain biking to mountaineering, whitewater kayaking to my new favourite beer, the High Tide Hemp Ale," Green said.
"It's going to be a really fun event and what better venue than with a view of the Chief right out the window."
The award-winning films in the Best of the Fest tour travels across Canada to 25 communities. Tickets for the Squamish event are available online at www.vimff.org, at Valhalla Pure Outfitters, at the Squamish Adventure Centre and at the door. Tickets are $12 in advance and $14 at the door.
