What is the true call of the wild? Here we travel down a very special river and are introduced to a wide variety of animal kingdom members, each of whom contributes their name for the sake of music. Look for the monk-ey.

Surf photographer Mickey Smith artfully crafts and narrates an immensely powerful and brooding glimpse at some of Ireland’s heaviest, and coldest, waves.

Sweetgrass Productions (Mountainfilm 2010, Signatures) offers a poetic ski film set to the haunting Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes song, “Desert Song.” The film provides a glimpse into the beauty of late season skiing in Haines, Alaska, as well as the extreme turns that still can be had as evenings deepen with long spring shadows.

In this spot-on parody, “I Know What You Spilled Last Summer” features four young oil executives, including a Jennifer Love Hewitt lookalike(ish) trying to cover up a terrible disaster.

Amazing what wonders can lead from an unassuming hole in the ground: crystal spires, cathedrals of calcite, gypsum cascades. To access this magical cave, however, a certain suffering must be endured and one must overcome more than a little fear. For the cavers of Into Darkness, this means squeezing through impossibly constricted spaces, exhaling everything in their lungs to make their bodies improbably flat, feeling their heartbeats thud into intractable rock, or holding themselves up by nothing more than their armpits.

"Kadoma" was a nickname for Hendri Coetzee, a legendary South African kayaker who had explored some of Africa’s wildest rivers. In December of 2010, American pro kayakers Chris Korbulic and Ben Stookesbury followed Coetzee into the Democratic Republic of Congo for a first descent of the dangerous Lukuga River. Seven weeks into the expedition, tragedy struck. Coetzee was paddling tip to tail in between the other two men when a fifteen-foot crocodile surfaced silently and swiftly pulled him underwater. He was never seen again.

Johnny Barnes is one of the happiest people in the world, and his main goal in life is to share that happiness. This humble and lovable Bermudan wakes up at 3 a.m. every morning and heads to one particularly busy intersection to stand, wave, blow kisses and shout, “I love you!” to passers-by. Crazy or not, Johnny has a lot to say about what it takes to be optimistic and happy. And he has brought smiles to the faces of thousands who would have an otherwise dreary morning commute.

Waiting for a Train is the lovely story of Japanese-born Toshio Hirano, who took the road less traveled by following a unique and encompassing passion for the music of Jimmie Rodgers. The moment he discovered Rodgers was a transcendent epiphany that inspired him to immigrate to the United States through Appalachia and Texas, after which he finally landed in San Francisco. As a man who is truly following his bliss, Hirano chases a passionate dream for over 40 years and is rewarded with a life well lived, one that is filled with music, song and dance.

With trial bike in hand, Danny MacAskill returns to the old country to try a few new school tricks. Filmmaker Dave Sowerby captured MacAskill at play in his hometown of Dunvegan, Scotland. 

This short film’s full title is Yelp (With Apologies to Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”). Directed by Tiffany Shlain and narrated by Peter Coyote, it is a brief essay (really a rant) about technology and how we need to–as Peter Coyote shouts to the world–“unplug, unplug, unplug and revisit the present tense.”
–DH