Is there life beyond the gates of The Mountain Kingdom? The West Kootenay’s OTHER mountain film festival

Devotees of the Rossland Mountain Film Festival might be intrigued to learn that their beloved film fest has a sibling in the region: The North Valley Mountain Film Festival, which will be holding its sixth annual event on March 3 at Bosun Hall in New Denver.

According to organizer Gary Parkstrom, the festival is “the brainchild of local back-country skiing legend Myles Berney.  He, along with an assortment of rag-tag, mountain-loving misfits decided six years ago that the North Slocan needed a festival that would celebrate mountains and people in the mountains.

“Each year a collection of mainly local West Kootenay films and slide shows are presented in New Denver to a packed house.  Our audience is diverse, spanning the generations from infants to elders and ranging in interests from nature appreciation to death-defying mountain sports.  The films and photo presentations we select cater to our diverse community.  The truly exciting aspect of our festival is the opportunity to see people from across the Kootenays, some of whom are friends or neighbours, in environments not everyone gets to see, but that everyone here appreciates.”

The festival has a loose theme of ‘mountains’ and organizers are happy to see any films or slideshows from professional or amateur devotees of the filmic arts. Submissions range from wildlife slideshows to white water kayaking, from edge-of-your-seat ski action to kids learning to Noboard.

Says Parkstrom, “We hope to see local Kootenay peoples' creative perspectives on mountain environments, and we don't shy away from political or controversial ideas.  We are not biased toward professional film-makers or photographers--if someone has a unique and captivating story to tell we don't mind if the piece is a little rough around the edges.  In fact, many people tell us how much they love the grassroots nature of our festival.  That being said, the worse the editing, the shorter the presentation needs to be!”

There’s a new feature at the festival this year: a storytelling component. Historically, about 30% of the program has been composed of photo slide shows—which typically include narration. Playing to this strength, this year organizers decided to encourage all submitters to share their stories as a prelude to sharing their work.

“We are hoping that those with a talent for writing and storytelling as well as photography will make the experience more personal for our audience.  We encourage these types of entries to limit their timeframe to fifteen minutes.

The North Valley Festival is a one day affair, including about three hours of material, allowing for an intermission in the middle. 

Parkstrom considers the festival a great opportunity for people throughout the West Kootenay to get to know their region—and neighbours—better. It’s also kind of exclusive…

“Because many of our entries are from Kootenay-based people who put their work together only for our event, the audience will see creative films and perspectives that are not shared anywhere else.”

With all this in mind, festival organizers encourage folks from around the region to submit material and to attend. “Our little festival in New Denver is an honest, local, grassroots event that gets to the heart of mountain culture.  We welcome people from around the region to get involved and come on out.”

For those interested in showing their work, the deadline for submissions of films, photo essays or multimedia presentation proposals is January 31, 2012. Please submit entries (preferably in DVD format) to Gary Parkstrom Box 377 New Denver, BC V0G 1S0.  Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope if you would like your DVD returned.  For more information please contact Gary (parkstrom@gmail.com; 250-358-2164).

Submissions that are shorter in duration have a better chance of being selected, and entries must be all-ages appropriate. The festival would like to celebrate the mountains through sharing stories, discoveries and insights – in fifteen minutes or less.  Please include a script for this format if you would like to participate in this aspect of the event.