Celebrating Kiwi filmmakers
The NZ Mountain Film & Book Festival is about to kick off in Queenstown, Wanaka and online. The seven-day event celebrates Kiwi filmmakers and all things adventure. It is run by a charity with the goal of raising money to get children into the outdoors and showcases a range of speakers and adventure films that will leave you feeling inspired.
Director Mark Sedon has been running the festival since its inception and says it first started in 2002 after seeing a similar event in Australia. The films shown are selected through a competition – this year there was around 188 films sent in for Mark and the judges to go through. A number of awards are handed out and the finalists get put into the programme for your viewing pleasure.
“For Queenstown’s opening night we have two North American women, Brette Harrington and Christina Lustenberger, coming over to speak. They’re hardcore skiers and climbers and are pretty inspirational women. The festival’s kind of a celebration of women charging. After the talk is the best New Zealand-made film, which is about these guys climbing in India,” says Sedon.
Changbang: Return to the Shining Mountain, which won the Hiddleston/ MacQueen Award for the Best NZ-made Film, follows three New Zealand Alpine Team climbers as they try to repeat the iconic first attempt of the West All of Changbang. Also showing on night one is Janwaar, that shows a group of kids whose lives are transformed when a skatepark is built in their small Indian village. Next up is New Way Up, where some Americans use paragliders to fly up to the base of a mountain and attempt to climb it. The night is wrapped up with Wild Waters, which follows French kayaker Nouria as she prepares to become the first female to run a 100ft (30m) waterfall.
“We gave Changabang the Best New Zealand-made award, so they won $2,500. The world premiere will be in Wanaka with the second screening in Queenstown a couple of days later. It’s just Kiwis out there, climbing a hardcore big mountain – suffering in the cold. Daniel Joel, who lived in Queenstown for a while was in the movie.
“All the Pure New Zealand shows are quite popular – there’s one film showing that day called Turn The Corner, which is a look at men’s mental health; talking about how 53 people in the construction industry kill themselves every year. This guy went and climbed Corner Peak in Lake Hawea 53 times. It’s really good, getting people to talk about mental health in the building industry – it was a really thought-provoking film.”
Session two in Queenstown is all about the Kiwis and will show off the country’s dramatic scenery and the determination and ingenuity of New Zealanders. Opening the day’s Pure NZ programme is the winner of the Grass Roots award, a film called Mitre Peak, which is all about a few people climbing Mitre Peak and setting up slacklines and doing some highlining – they add in a bit of paragliding for good measure, too.
The final event for the festival is the Snow Show on the Friday evening, a session that Mark says is very popular. The night will feature Close to Home, which is directed by Queenstown local Ryan Quirk and focuses on getting out on human-powered adventures in your own backyard. Free Ride will also show, which took home Best Snow Sports Film and showcases the wildest corners of Alaska in search of the craziest spine walls to ski and snowboard.
The ultimate goal for the festival each year is to give as much back to the community as possible and to make the event as carbon neutral as possible. One message that Mark wants to get out there is that the films showing haven’t been shown in Queenstown before. Focusing on homegrown filmmakers, giving insight into what’s going on – and what adventures can be had – around the country is what you’ll get to enjoy.
The NZ Mountain Film & Book Festival will start in Wanaka on Friday 23 June before heading to Queenstown on Thursday 29 June, and there’s an online broadcast of the films available across New Zealand and Australia. There’s also a free family show in each town, which will show films suitable to all ages. More information about the movies, speakers, and how to enter the competition can be found at mountainfilm.nz
