adrenaline

Mountainfilm in Telluride screens numerous films with professional athletes — skiers, bikers and even climbers — who drop of a variety of altitude-inducing ledges, cliffs and kickers. Sometimes even the pros land badly and become grievously injured.  High Fives Foundation is a relatively new nonprofit organization based in Lake Tahoe that works with athletes who have suffered a life-altering injury while pursuing their dream in the winter action sports community.

For the adrenaline junkies, surfers or those who simply revel in beautiful ocean waves, filmmaker Chris Bryan recently released footage from The Biggest Teahupoo Ever (video below) from the namesake break in Tahiti, French Polynesia. Surfer Kelly Slater described the day as “a draining feeling being terrified for other people's lives all day long. It's life or death. Letting go of that rope one time can change your life and not many people will ever experience that in their life." Mountainfilm in Telluride may have roots firmly embedded in climbing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the skill of these surfers.

At Mountainfilm in Telluride, we see a lot of action and adventure films that are plastered with Red Bull logos. It's clear that a lot of funding for expeditions and competitions might not happen were it not for Red Bull or other energy drinks. What's not clear is the health effects these caffeine- and sugar-filled concoctions have on athletes. Now, according to this great article, "Wary of Energy Drinks in an Adrenaline Sport," in the NY Times, a few athletes are endorsing a not-so-new kind of drink: water. And not a bottled water brand, but just good, plain old tap water.

Thirty years ago, the rad/extreme/adrenaline film genre was just getting going, and of course Mountainfilm was all over it. We premiered the film Gravity Never Sleeps by Telluride local (and former Mountainfilm board member) Ken Bailey in 1982. It's pretty impressive both what they pulled off way back then, and what filmmakers are doing now.