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VIFF screens local filmmaker's project

'Sacred Flight' follows a man in his dream to

When adventure filmmaker, Peter Chrzanowski, started to document a journey in a far mountain range in Columbia, he couldn't predict the story would become his own.

But the footage he accumulated during his adventure did turn into his own story and, thanks to the help of local filmmaker Ivan Hughes, it has culminated into the short documentary, Sacred Flight, which will be introduced to the world at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) in October.

"I'm grateful for my own journey and the lessons I've learned, and for the tremendous gifts I've been fortunate to receive along the way," said Chrzanowski of his adventure and filmmaking experience.

Co-directed by Chrzanowski and Hughes, the film takes place at the northeast corner of Colombia, near the Venezuelan border, in one of the world's most remote and spectacular mountain ranges - the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

The region is home to the reclusive Kogi, one of the last remaining traditional indigenous cultures, a people who have largely maintained their traditional ways by avoiding contact with "little brother," their name for those in the outside world who destroy the planet with warfare, pollution and ignorance.

They are the gatekeepers and ardent defenders of the sacred summits that surround them, while living in the shadows of a bitter civil war.

"In these times of a very fragile Mother Earth, there are many lessons to be learned from the Kogi," Chrzanowski said.

Hughes said he was attracted to the project after being approached by Chrzanowski in February 2008 during the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival.

"Peter was willing to let me have all his HD tapes and free rein to tell the story I thought came through in the footage," said Hughes. "His group went in there without much preparation or pretence and so I thought this was a unique opportunity to see how people from vastly differing cultures would interact."

Hughes said he was also keen to explore what motivates Chrzanowski, who has led a life of risk, and has "done so many crazy adventurous things in his life." As a brash youth he flirted with danger in the fast-paced world of extreme skiing, often in the mountain regions of South America. Then, he nearly lost his life in a bitter fall.

His first encounter with the Kogi was on one of his adventures. He had tried to convince them that he was unlike the rest of little brothers, but was turned back before he could reach the summits. Ten years later he returned to the area with new outlook, and HD camera and a paraglider, and using the power of only the sun and the wind, was granted one sacred flight.

Sacred Flight is a spectacular look into a remote and singular culture as it battles for survival amidst growing global threats, and the journey of one man who entered their life and transformed his own.

Go to VIFF.org for screening schedule.

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