The Miners’ Hall was filled the weekend of September 19-20 with an audience ready for Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival (VIMFF), put on by locally owned Sean Ennis Productions.
Being Ennis’s first organized event on his own he was happy with how smooth the event ran.
“I really appreciate that a mountain community supports something like this,” said Ennis.
On the Friday, summer-themed films were shown. Starting with a short, thought-provoking movie about America’s most endangered river, the Colorado River, movies about climbing, surfing, exploration and more followed. One movie that stood out was And Then We Swam about two good-humoured Brits who plan a trip to row across the Indian Ocean, without a support boat. “We have never spent a night at sea before,” said one of the two, James Adair, before they headed out on their 5,600 kilometre rowing trip.
On Saturday night, the films were winter themed with ice as the as a prevailing theme. One film was about ice farming on the Chimborazo glacier in Ecuador. A second was about an ice music festival, with all instruments made of ice, in Norway.
Seeing snow again made the audience excited. Nelson-based photographer Kari Medig had his short film The Fence shown at the festival. His goal was to capture the mere happiness of sliding on snow, of which the Rossland audience cheered.
The films shown were not necessarily the usual mountain films shown at a mountain film festival.
“I really enjoyed the film selection process,” shared Ennis.
He choose from over 50 films and tried to pick those anyone would enjoy and emphasized on individuality.
He tried to choose films that were “potentially a bit more meaningful.” Ennis ended up with an exciting group of films, many with a lot of humorous characters and impressive accomplishments.
To add to the film festival’s comfort, homemade cinnamon buns were sold by Ennis’s girlfriend Marley, together with other baked goods rom a friend of his mother.
The two nights were successful and Ennis hopes to host the VIMFF in Rossland again in 2015.
“I’m extremely happy with how it went both nights. Rossland proved to have a little more interest in the winter film night so it was great to see even more folks the second night. I definitely plan on bringing the 2015 tour to Rossland, as well as looking into other festivals.”
He also adds that he wants to thank Powderhound Sports for running advance ticket sales and donating door prices, and Rossland Recreation and the Rossland Council for Arts and Culture for making the two nights possible.