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Otago Daily Times
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Adventures to unfold on big screen
Some of the best adventure films from across the globe will be shown in Queenstown next week. The annual NZ Mountain Film Festival, now in its 23rd year, this year received a record 294 entries — the final lineup features 64 award-winning and finalist films, including 18 by Kiwi film-makers. Being held at the Queenstown Memorial Centre next Thursday and Friday, the films will also be available to watch online from July 1 to 31. The Thursday session here, from 7pm, starts with a 'social session' before a conversation with Beth Rodden, regarded as one of the greatest rock climbers of all time, who's recently published a memoir, A Light Through the Cracks, from 7.30pm. Four films will then be shown including Trango, directed by Leo Hoorn (US), the grand prize winner this year. The film follows a team of ski mountaineers, including previous NZ Mountain Film Fest guest speaker Christina Lustenberg, of the US, who skied the first descent of the Great Trango Glacier in Pakistan, after a two-year attempt. Navigating risk, grappling with grief and facing physical danger, the team pushes the limits of human experiences, facing the unimaginable together. Other films on Thursday night are Body of a Line (Henna Taylor, US), solo award winner Far Enough (Julien Carot, France), and Alone Across Gola (Jude Kriwald, UK), the best film on adventurous sports and lifestyle. Another seven films will screen during Friday's 'Pure NZ' session, between 3pm and 6pm. They include the community spirit award-winner, Spirit of the West (Pedro Pimentel), which is set against New Zealand's West Coast and captures the spirit of the Old Ghost Ultra, All In or Nothing, directed by Gordon Duff, which won the best documentary award, and follows young athlete Matthew Fairbrother who's up against 120 riders with full support crews as he attempts to win the overall title at the NZ MTB Rally, on his own, and Waiatoto (Josh Morgan and Jasper Gibson), winner of the Hiddleston/MacQueen Award for best NZ-made film. It tells the story of a traverse across the Southern Alps through packraft, skis and tramping. Starting at the Matukituki, Gibson, Nick Pascoe and Charlie Murray travelled via Tititea, the Volta Glacier and the Waiatoto to the Tasman Sea. "We didn't set out to make a film," Pascoe says, "the focus was on a creative adventure through an incredible corner of the country, simply for the sake of it." Rounding out this year's festival is Friday night's 'Snow Show', from 7pm, which includes best snow sports film Painting the Mountains (Pierre Cadot, France), set in El Chalten, a remote Patagonian village beneath Fitz Roy, where three French skiers arrive to pioneer new lines. Tickets to Thursday's session cost $30 ($5 youth discount) and $25 for each of Friday's sessions, with youth discounts. For more info, or to buy tickets, see
CBC
19-02-2025
- Sport
- CBC
'We had the imagination': B.C. skier leads pair in first-ever ski descent of Mount Robson's south face
Social Sharing It was about 10 years ago that Christina "Lusti" Lustenberger began imaging the impossible: Could she ski down the signature south face of Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies? For those unaware, the south face appears as an imposing death star of snow and granite, looming over all who drive the Yellowhead Highway in British Columbia. Dissecting the vertical monolith is a thin, unbroken ribbon of white — snow, in other words — that Lustenberger thought just might be a route down from the top. Not for mere mortals, mind you. But for someone with her skiing pedigree, nerves of steel and local savvy. WATCH | B.C. skier talks about the experience: B.C. extreme athlete becomes 1st of 2 to ski south face of Mount Robson 16 hours ago Duration 2:29 "Growing up in Canada, in the Columbia Valley, Mount Robson has such a deep history of climbing and skiing," she told CBC. "It really is the King of the Rockies, and as a professional skier and someone who spent a lifetime in the mountains, you're drawn to such wild and extreme terrain." And so it was last week that after a decade of incubating the idea, Lustenberger and French alpinist Guillaume Pierrel climbed to the summit of Mount Robson. Then on Sunday, they skied down, becoming the first to conquer the south face. "Even when you reach the summit, you're only halfway there. The ski descent took three and a half hours, and there were multiple rappels, transitioning from ski to climb," she said. "The mountain just puts so much pressure on you. Pierrel said the pair's success was all because of his partner. "She's already a big source of inspiration for me, and that's why I'm here," he said. "We're going to put our name in the history of the Canadian Rockies. So, yeah, it's such an honour." Hiking to the summit took the better part of two days, plus an overnight bivouac on a snowy ledge. Weather was also a challenge because Mount Robson is so tall it can create its own weather patterns. That led to a false start from a point 200 metres below the true top of the mountain. A blessing in disguise, that first attempt was abandoned when visibility suddenly dropped to almost zero. "It was then that we decided we would do a second attempt from a different approach," said Lustenberger. "To leave that upper 200 metres was just not satisfactory. And so we felt like it was important enough for us to try again and complete the vision." A former Canadian Olympic ski racer, Lustenberger has made a name for herself in the world of extreme ski descents, bagging a long list of firsts from New Zealand to Baffin Island. Last month, she appeared at the Sundance Film Festival in support of the film Trango, a documentary of her first descent from the Pakistani peak of the same name. Before Lustenberger and Pierrel, only three men had ever successfully skied down Mount Robson, all on the less technical north face. That means two more firsts for Lustenberger, who calls Golden, B.C. home: the first woman ever to ski down from the tallest peak in the Canadian Rockies and first to do it on the south face. "Finding space as an explorer and a steep skier, you start to look at mountains differently. You try to imagine your own way through them. The south face had been left. No one had looked at it to climb and ski. And we did," she said.
