Risk & Reward Shorts

Q&A with Off-Width Outlaw subject Pamela Shanti Pack and Likebomb Skiing director Erik Henriksson!

All great adventures potentially have an equally great price. For those who make adventure sports a career, the rewards can be great as well. The protagonists in this group of short films, culminating in the featurette Walled In, live on the line between risk and reward.

El Sendero Luminoso
Renan Ozturk, USA, 2014, digital projection, 7m
World-renowned free solo climber Alex Honnold went to Mexico in January with the talented Camp4 film crew in hopes of capturing what many regard as the most difficult ropeless climb ever attempted.

Wedge
Brecht Vanhof, USA, 2013, digital projection, 4m
There’s a highly anticipated beast of a winter wave in Newport Beach, California, that rolls in heavy and attracts hordes of brave souls who attempt to drop into its steep face.

64 mph
Brett Schreckengost, USA, 2014, digital projection, 3m
The San Joaquin Couloir is one of Telluride’s most iconic backcountry lines. Greg Hope is one of the town’s best-known rippers. In 64 mph, the two meet for one slough-dodging, high-velocity descent.

Off-Width Outlaw
Celin Cerbo, USA, 2013, digital projection, 6m
In a sport that is not for the weak or easily discouraged, Pamela Shanti Pack excels. One of the most accomplished off-width climbers in the world, Pack seeks out North America’s most challenging inverted and vertical cracks with what she describes as “masochistic fervor.” Off-Width Outlaw follows her quest to establish new routes in the desert climbing mecca of Indian Creek in southeastern Utah.

The Balloon Highline
Sébastien Montaz-Rosset, France, 2014, digital projection, 5m
Slacklining no longer seems to need the expanse of trees, crevasses, or other earthbound objects––only some kind helium and a cool buzz.

SuperMom
Mike Douglas, Canada, 2013, digital projection, 10m
With a graceful style and aggressive lines, Wendy Fisher ruled the women’s big mountain freeskiing scene from 1996 to 2004. She skied Alaskan spines, hucked cliffs, starred in movie segments, won many championships, kept up with male cohorts, and inspired a new generation of female badasses. Then she had kids and traded in the life of a professional skier for being a mom to two red-headed boys. This film checks in with Fisher, who gets the opportunity to see if she’s still got it on the steeps of B.C. and Chile.

Walled In
Ben Stookesberry, USA, 2013, digital projection, 35m
Ostensibly, Walled In is the story of a first descent of the rowdy Marble Fork of the Kaweah River in Sequoia National Park by kayakers Ben Stookesbury and Chris Korbulic, but this film poses bigger questions than whether the pair can send a river that flows from above 12,000 feet in elevation to near sea level in less than 30 miles. It asks why they choose to engage in a sport that carries the threat of death, which they witnessed when their partner Hendri Coetzee was eaten by a crocodile in the Congo in 2010 (Kadoma, Mountainfilm 2011).

Likebomb Skiing
Erik Henriksson, Sweden, 2014, digital projection, 5m
Lacking snow, but clearly not courage and poise, Johan Jonsson skis lines that any sane person would avoid.