Telluride Mountain Film Festival
Posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008
The scene: Telluride, Colorado, setting of the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival
The cast: Crunchy climbers in Carharts, bespectacled filmmakers from L.A., notebook-toting film critics, cruiser-riding Telluride locals, pro whitewater kayakers driving Subarus stacked with colorful play boats, and adventure photographers.
The date: Memorial Day Weekend, 2008
10 a.m. A crowded movie theater, lights dimmed. A larger than life image of Chris Sharma climbing a 70-foot arch above the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Mallorca plays on the screen.
WANNABE FILM CRITIC enters through the back door. She starts scribbling notes in a bound notebook.
Notes read: King Lines. A movie by Peter Mortimer and Josh Lowell. Whoa, Sharma is ripped. He’s climbing that?! Hang on tight, mister.
60 minutes pass.
Enter JENNY LOWE-ANKER, wife of mountaineer Conrad Anker and widow of climber Alex Lowe, who died in an avalanche in 1999 in Tibet. In her hand is a copy of her newest book, Forget Me Not. She reads an excerpt from the book.
JENNY: I have a vivid memory of the day I met Alex Lowe. I was young then, around twenty, but already tied to another. Barely out of high school, I had married my first boyfriend, Tom Ballard, a high school crush who was a rock climber, skier, and the proprietor of a bicycle shop in Missoula, Montana, where I grew up. Alex was three years younger than I, perhaps still a senior in high school, and so I observed him with a distant curiosity that day. Still, I felt the magnetism of his presence.
Later that day. 5 p.m. A crowded movie theater, lights dimmed. ALEX GIBNEY, the director of 2005’s film, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, stands in front a massive screen. He introduces his new film, which won an Academy Award for best documentary. It’s called Taxi to the Dark Side, and it’s about the torture of Afghani and Iraqi prisoners in U.S. detainment centers. The film ultimately traces the blame back to the highest source of American power—the White House.
106 minutes pass.
GIBNEY returns for a question and answer session. A viewer in the audience raises his hand.
VIEWER: Alex, are you afraid for your safety from the U.S. government after making a film like this?
Alex: Well, at the very least, I expect to be audited this year.
Even later that day. 10:30 p.m. A crowded movie theater, lights dimmed. Durango, Colorado residents JON BAILEY and STEVE FASSBINDER stand on stage, introducing their flick, Mallethead, which is a half-serious spoof about bike polo.
20 minutes pass.
The crowd laughs. Cheers. Claps.
FADE TO BLACK.
Megan is a former editor at Outside Magazine, and now an associate editor at Skiing and was crowned Telemark Freeskiing Champion in Alyeska in March. She lives in Boulder.
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