The Reel Rock Film Tour 2011 – The Joy Trip Project

The Reel Rock Film Tour 2011 – The Joy Trip Project


The fall adventure movie season kicks off in Boulder next week with the Reel Rock Film Tour. A collaboration between Colorado’s Sender Films and Big Up Productions of New York, Reel Rock is an inspiring international event that brings together local outdoor enthusiasts to revel in the sport of climbing.
“We’ve come a long way in six years,” said co-founder Josh Lowell. “People love an excuse get together, party, live vicariously through the nut-cases that we film and get inspired for their own adventures.”
With screenings set for almost 250 venues around the world Reel Rock will deliver a series of six short films. Though each is focused on a particular aspect of climbing from gym competition to high altitude mountaineering Lowell said the program is meant to appeal to a wide audience.
“I think we’ve introduced climbing to a lot of new people through the tour,” he said. “We try to make it accessible enough for people who are bringing their girlfriends or their parents or buddies who have never tried it before. I think the films are made in a way that regular people can get inspired by them and be entertained by them without necessarily knowing all the lingo.”
Timed to a very watchable 120 minutes, the short film series offers an attractive big-screen alternative to home DVD viewing or desktop download. Screenings take on the thrill and fervor of live music show with opportunities for local non-profits and retailers to connect to dedicated members of their community. This model of film distribution puts movie-makers like Lowell in the driver’s seat to bring a quality product to a captivated audience.
“Just like bands that used to sell a lot of CDs now they make their money touring,” Lowell said. “The experience of going to a show with 500 other like-mined fanatics and having it be a party and getting free gear and inspiring each other is something you can’t download.”
The Reel Rock Film Tour experience is coming to a town near you. Visit their web site for show times and details http://www.reelrocktour.com


Origins: Obe and Ashima

There’s a nine year old girl from New York City taking the bouldering world by storm, and her name is Ashima Shiraishi. Under the tutelage of her passionate coach, Obe Carrion, this tiny master is crushing competitions and raising the bar for climbing’s youth. Obe brings her to bouldering’s proving ground, Hueco Tanks, TX, where he had his own big breakthrough 13 years earlier, and Ashima rips the place apart.
 
Race for the Nose

Welcome to the wildest competition known to man — the speed record on the Nose route of El Capitan. For 50 years, the best climbers in the world have been one-upping each other on this massive granite monolith in Yosemite National Park, racing up 3,000 feet of vertical rock in under three hours, and risking life and limb to shave mere seconds off the record time. We follow Dean Potter and Sean Leary on their attempt to break this legendary record on the classic route that has been the scene of epic rivalries, brutal accidents, and remains to this day a hotly contested prize.
Slacklife

American climbing dirtbag Andy Lewis is taking the discipline of slacklining into the future as he solos the worlds longest high-lines and masters the hardest aerial tricks, all the while pushing his equipment to the limit. As Andy goes higher, harder and faster with climbing, slack and BASE, we all have to wonder how far he can go before it’s one step over the line.
Ice Revolution

At British Columbia’s spectacular Helmcken Falls, a revolution is taking place, led by Canadian maniac Will Gadd. After 30+ years of ice climbing, Gadd has finally realized his dream of climbing radically overhanging, heinously difficult ice. Gadd and Tim Emmett dodge exploding 30 foot icicle bombs and send the hardest pure ice climb in the world, but they swear it’s just the first step in a whole new direction for the sport.
Project Dawn Wall

Tommy Caldwell is the master of big wall free climbing. He’s devoted the last decade of his life to opening free routes on Yosemite’s El Capitan, rewriting climbing history in the process. Now he’s three seasons deep into his ultimate project – the seemingly impossible Dawn Wall. Joined by bouldering specialist Kevin Jorgeson, Tommy makes his first big ground-up push, pulling pitch after pitch of 5.14 first ascents before an epic storm shuts the team down until next year…
Cold

Over the past 26 years, 16 expeditions have tried and failed to climb one of Pakistan’s 8,000 meter peaks in winter. In February 2011, Simone Moro, Denis Urubko, and Corey Richards became the first to achieve this alpine dream by summiting Gasherbrum II, surviving -50 degree temperatures and a massive avalanche. Richards captured both the glory and the pain of their adventure in this raw and moving, first-person look at modern super-alpinism.