The Lookout Wild Film Festival celebrates the outdoors
The beginning of a new year is an exciting time for film fans in Chattanooga. Finally, the Scenic City has a film festival season, a time when there is an abundance of film news and press releases all leading to some of the best events in the South. Like last year, festival season kicks off with Chattanooga’s first successful festival, the Lookout Wild.
While Chattanooga has a reputation for being a technology darling, dubbed Gig City by those who sell us high speed internet, the city has a longer reputation as a haven for people drawn to the outdoors. Where better to see a collection of short and feature length films about the wild places of the world than in a city that celebrates a deep connection with nature. The festival is now in its fifth year, and each year it seems the LWFF grows in popularity.
Perhaps the best part of the LWFF is how eclectic the selections are. Starting this Thursday and continuing through Sunday, the festival is doubling its offerings with a total of 61 films, each exploring a different aspect of the outdoor lifestyle.
The films will tell a variety of stories, from the first Bangladeshi to climb the highest peak on every continent in a mini-documentary hoping to raise awareness about sustainability, indigenous culture, and women’s rights to up paddle boarding the Rio Marañón, the Amazon river’s main source, a feat that has never been done, to bouldering in Tennessee’s Rock Town.
But as always, here are some highlights that are not to be missed:
THURSDAY
Can We Save the Frog Prince?
Honduras/UK, 13 mins
Amphibian chytrid fungus is a pathogen spreading around the world that is causing global amphibian declines and extinctions. Many species now face an uncertain future unless we help them battle this disease. The Honduras Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Center (HARCC) team are working to ensure the survival of three critically endangered species from Cusuco National Park, a global biodiversity hotspot located in northwestern Honduras. In 2007 they discovered chytrid in this forest and are setting to work tackling this challenging problem with a head-start and captive breeding program.
Chasing Niagara
USA, 77 mins
When pro kayaker Rafa Ortiz decides to follow his dream to paddle over Niagara Falls, he sets in motion an incredible series of events that eventually takes on a life of its own. To prepare for this mission, Rafa enlists the help of world-renowned paddler Rush Sturges and a tight team of their friends. Together they go on a remarkable three-year journey from the rainforest rivers of Mexico to the towering waterfalls of the U.S. Northwest.
FRIDAY
The Fledglings
Mexico, 26 mins
What happens when The North Face climbers Cedar Wright and Matt Segal become absolute bumbling beginners at an obscure and adventurous air sport called paragliding? The Answer: Hilarity ensues. Follow Matt and Cedar on a perilous, beautiful, light hearted, sometimes intense journey to fly off of the highest peak in Mexico with less than a year of experience. Just because you are a beginner doesn’t mean you can’t dream big.
China: A Skier’s Journey
China, 17 mins
Skiing as sport is in its infancy in China, a phenomenon of the country’s exploding middle class. As a means of survival, however, it is thousands of years old, a stone age hunter-gatherer technology born in the Altai mountains where China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Siberia merge. On a vast trajectory that spans 11,000km of Northern China, Chad Sayers and Forrest Coots touch down into the rich past and dizzying future of these two respective Chinese ski cultures. As one rapidly expands, they find the other is at risk of disappearing.
SATURDAY
Expedition Alaska
Alaska, 70 mins
Twenty teams brave the Alaskan wilderness for the competition of a lifetime. Racers will traverse over 350 miles in a non-stop seven-day race, carrying everything they will need to survive a course that pits themselves against Mother Nature and each other. Racers will mountain bike through the sharp peaks of the Kenai Peninsula, traverse mountain ranges, crevasse filled glaciers, mudflats filled with quicksand and paddle countless life-threatening rivers and rapids.
Ace and the Desert Dog
Utah, 10 mins
Ace Kvale turned 60 last fall, and to celebrate, he planned a 60-day, off-trail backpacking trip around Utah’s Canyon Country, leaving from his front door. He had a dozen friends join him for different sections of the trip, and one friend who joined him for the whole thing: his blue heeler, 10-year-old Genghis Khan aka ‘Desert Dog’.