Mountainfilm Blog

Right before the festival this year, another first was notched into history: the youngest kid to summit the highest mountain in the world. Jordan Romero, age 13, hit the summit of Everest on May 22 at 9:45am local time.

Jordan Romero on Everest, from his web site

Of course, there is a fair share of controversy about whether or not a 13-year old kid should even be attempting feats like this. Jordan is actually on a bid to be the youngest person not only to summit Everest, but to hit all of the 7 Summits--the 7 highest mountains on each of the 7 continents in the world (actually there are 8, if you include both Oceana & Australia). He's already bagged them all except Vinson in Antarctica! What do you think? Are we risking too much in search of superlatives?

Looking for ways to learn more about the films in the 2010 festival? Here is a list of links for festival selections, including: official web sites, filmmaker blogs, links to non-profits, info about screenings, DVD sales information and more! If you find links we haven't found, post them to the comments section. The 10 Conditions of Love 180° South Africa’s Lost Eden Alone on the Wall As It Happens Bag It Barefoot to Timbuktu Bearwalker of the Northwoods The Blueline Brother’s Wild

We're going to start posting links to full short films online. If you missed any of these during the 2010 festival, here's your chance to check them out! The first film is Fish Out of Water. It features Higher Ground, the Sun Valley Adaptive Sports Program, winner of the 2010 Moving Mountains Prize. [dailymotion id=xb3g9w]

A week post-festival and we're still reeling from all the great things that happened over Memorial Day weekend. If you haven't checked out this year's award winners yet, you can do so here. A lot of work goes into making award-winning films, but a lot of work also went into making the physical awards that were given out at Mountainfilm 2010. Telluride local and artist Anton Viditz-Ward was the mastermind behind this year's awards, and we figured we'd share some photos from the creative process with you for some behind the scenes action. [gallery]

Last year Dr. Rick Hodes, who works with Ethiopian children who suffer from tuberculosis of the spine and whose story is told in Making the Crooked Straight, won the Moving Mountains Prize. His medical program was awarded $5,000, and with it he was able to help a young patient named Meiraf. Meiraf attended this year's festival, and read a moving letter to a full crowd at the Palm Theatre. It's another example of what we call the Domino Effect of Mountainfilm; using inspiration to truly make positive change. For those of you that missed it, here is Meiraf's entire letter:

Thanks to our presenting sponsor First Ascent (that's their good looking Airstream above) for putting together this great recap video. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5sJtQtIC3Q&feature=player_embedded]

We wrapped up Mountainfilm 2010 with a huge picnic and our awards ceremony yesterday afternoon. With so many great films we knew it would be hard to nail just a few down to hand out awards to. It's important to recognize all the excellent films that were shown throughout the weekend, as well as the support of all of our festival goers. This festival certainly wouldn't be the same without the energy and emotion of all of our attendees. So a big thank you to everyone who came out! Now for our winners:

Moving Mountains: Fish Out of Water