– Alpinist fills Mainstage Theater’s 340 seats, turning away dozens at the door –
– Raffle supporting 1% Percent for the Tetons raises over $1,400 –
Jackson, Wyo – September 19, 2006 – On September 14, Jackson-based Alpinist Magazine continued its record of selling out every night of The Alpinist Film Festival when it hosted a special screening of The Reel Rock Film Tour before a full house. When the doors of the Mainstage Theater opened at 7 p.m., dozens rushed the ticket table to vie for the few remaining tickets, and dozens more were turned away. The lobby quickly filled for the Wyoming premiere of First Ascent (by Peter Mortimer and Sender Films) and Dosage Volume IV (by Josh Lowell and Big Up Productions) as festival-goers enjoyed the social hour before the films.
Thousands of dollars’ worth of prizes, including the coveted forty-day Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Ruby Pass, were raffled off to benefit 1% for the Tetons. By the end of the evening the raffle had raised over $1,400 for the nonprofit, which actively initiates sustainability and conservation practices around the Jackson area.
Inside the theater, Mark Baron, the mayor of Jackson, began the night by welcoming the crowd at 8 p.m. Alpinist’s editor-in-chief, Christian Beckwith, then introduced the films.
After a short tribute to Doug Coombs, the feature film, First Ascent, animated the audience with painful fingerlocks, breathtaking ascents and, of course, enormous falls. The charismatic Swiss climber, Didier Berthold, was the focus of the film, which captured the lives of today’s most obsessed first ascensionists around the world. The creation of First Ascent is documented in an eight-page article, “Verite Bites,” in Alpinist Issue 17.
A short intermission and raffle give-aways was followed by the next film: a segment of Dosage Volume IV, the latest in Josh Lowell’s series of vignette-style video anthologies, that mesmerized the crowd. The film followed Tommy Caldwell up and down and up again as he free climbed two El Capitan routes in a day, one of them Lynn Hill’s famous free-climbing testpiece, The Nose (5.14a). Caldwell’s modest nonchalance for more than sixty pitches of difficult climbing easily won the crowd. His historic El Cap linkup is featured in a ten-page article, “Long Time Coming,” in Alpinist Issue 15.
The final raffle, of the Ruby Pass, captivated the hopeful audience. Immediately afterward, many of them retired to Trio Restaurant for the afterhours-party, which packed the room despite the late hour. “The Special Screening met the high standards of our festival,” said Film Festival Director Beckwith, noting the Festival’s continued success boded well for next winter’s Master Festival, a three-day film extravaganza to be held March 15-17 2007 at the Center for the Arts in Jackson, Wyoming.
Powered by Base Camp Communications, The Alpinist Film Festival is supported by Patagonia, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and a number of Valley businesses and individuals.
About The Alpinist Film Festival:
The Alpinist Film Festival, founded in March 2005 by Alpinist Magazine as The Barry Corbet Film Festival, honors Barry Corbet’s athletic and artistic spirit with films that celebrate the adventure lifestyle across disciplines and generations. The Film Festival’s mission is to advance the art of cinematographic storytelling as we underscore the unity among the adventure lifestyle communities. Profits from every Festival are donated to charity to foster well-being in the places of our inspiration.
About Alpinist Magazine:
Hailed by Italian climbing legend Reinhold Messner as “The best climbing magazine in the world today,” Alpinist Magazine is an archival-quality, quarterly publication dedicated to world alpinism and adventure climbing. The pages of Alpinist capture the art of ascent in its most powerful manifestations, presenting an articulation of climbing and its lifestyle that matches the intensity of the pursuit itself. Alpinist has been awarded three Maggie Awards, for Best Quarterly/Consumer Division, Best Overall Design, and Best Electronic Newsletter, and was featured in a seven-page article in Outside Magazine (“The Purists”) in March 2005. The magazine’s editorial and publishing offices are based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and online at www.alpinist.com.