Mountaineering
Where can you watch the best Indian adventure films?
The IMF Mountain Film Festival took place in the last week of February 2020 and had some of the best short films about adventure sports in India screened at the festival.
The IMF Mountain Film Festival, organized by the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, featured its fourth edition in 2020.
Held at the Indian Mountaineering Foundation in New Delhi each year, the festival has been a platform for filmmakers to present their best adventure short films in India to be viewed by like-minded people. The festival was started as a way to showcase the amazing adventure opportunities across the country, so all adventure films set in India, about Indian adventure sports, and about the Himalayan mountains are showcased during the festival.
In the past few editions of the festival, films on display have covered a number of adventure disciplines including kayaking, mountain biking, ice climbing, snowboarding, trekking, mountaineering, bouldering and rock climbing. The films had been shot across India at various popular adventure destinations, including Sikkim, Kumaon, Garhwal, Zanskar, Gulmarg, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Western Ghats, Kerala, and more. The main criterion is that even if the filmmaker or the athlete in the film is not from the country, the film itself should have been made in India.
“The main point of the festival is that it only features films shot in India in the competitive category. So this year, of the 40 films at the festival, 35 were shot in India and were in competition while five were shot outside India and just screened for viewers. This is because the objective of the festival is to promote Indian locations, and to create opportunities for Indian athletes and filmmakers,” says Maninder Kohli, the festival director.
At the 2020 edition of the festival, the participants were asked to submit films about adventure sports, wildlife and culture. The festival organizers included films about culture since they want to encourage sustainability and conservation as part of India being seen as an adventure sport location. This is especially because the lives of people living in the mountains are affected by visitors.
“Some films screened at the festival this year had social angles. The film Healing Himalaya was about cleaning the mountain range and picking up garbage along the trekking trails. The film Sons of the Soil was about a team that went into remote Himalayan villages and set up solar panels for electricity. With having these films at the festival, we also wanted to make people aware of the lives of people living in the mountains and what they go through. These films are about mountain lifestyle and culture, which is unique about our festival because most international festivals only focus on the sport and adventure; here we want to show the lifestyle in the Himalayas because we know it is so different from say, the Alps or the Andes,” adds Maninder.
The festival will now go on its annual India tour wherein the short films will be curated on easy-to-distribute pen drives and be screened across the country. The tour will carry on until December 2020 or January 2021 with corporates, educational institutes, motivational speakers, adventure clubs, and any other teams or individuals screening the films at third-party events, just by requesting that the festival organizers make them available. The curation will be of the shorter films, spanning a run time of one-and-half to two hours in total.
“Whenever it is a marquee event in a big city, we reach out to either an athlete who has featured in the films or the filmmakers themselves to be present at the event so they can introduce the film and talk about it,” says Maninder.
This year, three Red Bull Media House films were screened at the festival. The details of the films are below.
A Kayaker’s Solo Adventure in India
French kayaking champion Nouria Newman visited Ladakh for a seven-day solo kayaking trip across three rivers – Tsarap, Zanskar and Indus. This film follows her journey as she explores the three rivers by herself, kayaking across 450 kilometres of Himalayan water by day and camping outdoors by night. This film was awarded the Best Film: Mountain Water Sports at the festival.
Tuhin Satarkar’s Ascent
Pune-based rock climbing and bouldering expert Tuhin Satarkar has dedicated his career to opening up new routes and furthering the Indian climbing scene. In Ascent, he becomes the first person to successfully climb three peaks in the Sahayadris – Dhodap, Jivdhan and Naneghat – assisted by his climbing partner Bhupesh Patil, thereby opening up new climbing destinations for other climbers in India’s western ghats.
Higher Ground: Paragliding in the Himalayas
Two professional European paragliding athletes visit Himachal Pradesh to attempt to fly across the state on their own personal adventure. Starting at Bir-Billing, Belgian Thomas de Dorlodot and Spaniard Horacio Llorens flew over Manali, Rohtang Pass and Keylong before landing at Spiti as they discovered the uniqueness of the Himalayan landscape over a four-day adventure. The film is set to be released later in 2020 and was exclusively premiered at the IMF Mountain Film Festival.