It has been 20 years since the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival had its first opening night at Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver. The first festival featured Canadian climber John Dunn, Joe Josephson, and Peter Croft across three days. Fast forward to present day and the festival now nine days, 32 shows, 98 films, and 32 speakers. Needless to say, the vision of the festival’s creator, Alan Formanek, has come to blossom and then some. With almost a week left in the festival, we thought would be great to check in with Alan and get his perspective of 20 years in the making. Here is what he had to say.
Alan Formanek. Photo courtesy of Alan Formanek ©
Hi Alan, thanks again for taking the time to chat with us. So..20 years of VIMFF! How does it feel looking back on the experiences that you have had since the first year in 1998?
Hey Tim, it’s been a wild roller-coaster ride in all senses. In 1998, I was a full-time UBC Comp Lit student, working part-time at MEC, had a young family, and shared this idea of starting our own mountain film festival here in North Van. We had a 3-day event at the Centennial Theatre with Peter Croft, Jo Josephson and John Dunn the Arctic Explorer.
The first year went quite well, although we lost our shirts and underwear due to bad planning and lack of experience. It was a lack of good sense and everything else, I mean, we lost it in the real East European way as in we did not take any salaries and we lost on the top of this. We did it all on our student loans, the MEC floor staff abundant salary and volunteer time. Since then, we have continued adding shows, venues, days, countries, continents, tours, to the extent of having 9 days of the main festival in February in 5 venues, hosting Reel Rock and Fall Series every autumn, touring to 50 places across Canada and the US, organizing a similar festival in Europe in my home town in Slovakia (Bratislava) and touring it around, and programming for a smaller climbing event in Sicily, Italy (the San Vito Climbing Festival). I have also tried good luck, bad luck and pot luck with a few additional events in Utah, Beijing in China, Islamabad in Pakistan, Barcelona and the Canary Islands.
I want to go back to 1998 for a moment. What first gave you the idea of having a festival and how challenging was the first year to get it off the ground?
I don’t know exactly where the idea came from. I was at UBC studying languages, literature and film, working at MEC, climbing in Squamish, and climbing in Europe since 1978. I worked for the Art Film Festival in Slovakia for a number of years as an interpreter and went a few times to this mountain film festival in the sandstone areas of the Czech Republic (Teplice nad Metují). Checking the “Best of Banff” Tour in Vancouver probably gave me the final kick to start something new in Vancouver. I wasn’t sure as I had no previous experience. People like John Irvine, Anders Ourom, Greg Foweraker, Dave Vernon and other folks at MEC convinced me to give it a go. My ex-wife Anina and BeAtrice Winsborrow helped me big time in the early years, along with Anders Ourom, Dean Hart, Elspeth Hayter, Liz Scremin from the ACC, and Mariusz Pawlak. Eventually, we founded the non-profit society, Anders was really a huge help here, and then slowly continued building it step by step. It came as a combination of my love of climbing, the outdoors, film and literature, community work, and doing something meaningful.
The first location for the festival was the Centennial Auditorium. Does it feel like anything has changed over the years when starting the festival each year in the same auditorium?
Centennial Theatre itself did not change much inside in the auditorium. They finally got a good, high-end data projector now, after 18 years. The lobby got much bigger around 2002 and it helped us big time with bringing sponsors, bands, beer, food, coffee and having much more of a social gathering in the lobby. Centennial Theatre is our main venue, with 650 seats. It’s the right size, good location on the North Shore, easy access and parking, nice and competent staff. They have a new director, Jill Johnson, and she is incredible – very artsy, community oriented, she climbs a bit, worked at MEC before, hugely supportive. I can call Jill any time day and night and ask her about their high-end projector throw distance, proscenium height, screen size, lobby dimensions or what kind of coffee they serve.
Behind the scenes, a festival of this magnitude takes a lot of work. What are the things you enjoy the most and what are the things that you could leave behind?
Solo of “Biela prinzezná” (The White Princess), 5.10d, in home-made shoes, Kršlenica, Slovakia, September 1981. Photo courtesy of Alan Formanek ©
I’d like to be more involved on the programming side with guest speaker and film selection, preview films, go to other festivals, network, be more like a visionary or what. I tend to get drawn too much to the office chores or corresponding, writing emails, calling sponsors and the media, and this could be tiring at times, especially before the festival, when you reply to 5 emails and get 10 new ones in the meantime, and it never seems to stop. I think I would love to employ a full-time manager at some point and be a bit less involved in the daily mechanic, robot-like routine and office tasks. However, we still need to secure more operations funding in order to get there. I love the artsy part more – films, guest speakers, programming, creating something out of nothing, flying with the eagles in the clouds, and not leaving a trace. Doing interviews for the Squamish Climbing Magazine is what I enjoy the most! In the 1980 I used to work as an editor for the Slovak Climbing Magazine “Jamesák” publishing my own shit, interviews, translations from other magazines. I’d like to come back to my own trade one day, to my own trad trade. We can become colleagues one day.
Do you see the crowd of outdoor adventurists changing throughout the years or is there always a certain characteristic to the people that attend the festival that has been there since the beginning?
It’s changing and it’s not. We see the same old folks every year, Fred Beckey usually comes every year, the local climbers from Vancouver and Squamish. At the same time, we see much more young climbers. We also keep adding different themes evenings every year – alpine climbing, mountain bike, ski, water sports, mountain culture, SUP, environmental shows – and each of them seem to bring different crowds. We keep seeing the old faces every year, and also lots of new people, too. It’s an eclectic crowd and I probably don’t seem to be in a position to characterize it. It’s a great, young, active and beautiful outdoor crowd for sure.
Alan on Lost in Bosnia (7b+), Hvar, Croatia, July 2016. Photo courtesy of Alan Formanek ©
Has there been people involved with the festival that had used it as a platform for experience and now play a central role in the outdoor industry?
I remember seeing Will Stanhope and Jason Kruk since their early years, maybe also Sean McColl. Will has presented a number of times at the festival and has grown to international stardom over the years. I remember inviting Chris Sharma in 2002 after climbing “Biographie/Realization” in Céüse and he did his very first big public show for us. I spent quite a few hours on the phone with him before, convincing him to come, back and forth, he almost backed off completely, but it worked! Tom Wright has been working with us as a Programming Director and Jury Coordinator for years – he has grown with us and become a completely independent, proficient, knowledgeable and passionate film programming director, along with pursuing his own amazing climbing “career” – we are so lucky to have Tom on the team. Lexie Owen and Kelly Uren came from the Capilano University Outdoor Rec Program, and stayed with us for a number of years. Kelly still works as our Production Manager and she has been truly amazing in her job – she is very organized, social, energetic and high energy. One of the issues we face is that we can’t offer real, competitive salaries, and after a while with us people need to move ahead and sort their lives. My hopes are that we will be able to change this soon and offer more full-time, year-round positions.
With any ‘coming of age’ story, there are always moments that stick out as influential or character building. Is there any moment throughout the years that really sticks out for you?
The 1998 first festival ever. John Bachar playing saxophone before his show and then at the Jack Lonsdale Pub. Greg Child abseiling on the stage at the Centennial Theatre to deliver the VIMFF Grand Prize. Chris Sharma doing his first ever big stage show. Lynn Hill’s show last year, she gave it all! Jon Turk’s shamanic-like presentation on his Ellesmere circumnavigation/crossing. Voytek Kurtyka’s first big North American show in 1999. I am a climber and surely heavily biased here.
Similarly, is there a particular film that sticks out?
“Rockin’ Cuba” by Vlad Cellier stands out in that I can watch it a zillion times and still enjoy the heck of it. It combines great, creative cinematography, Cuban music, French humour, good story and climbing by Nina Caprez cool & the gang, it is really special. “Solo” from 2008 on Andrew McAuley’s solo Tasman Sea crossing in a kayak was very powerful, transcendental, sad, depressing and uplifting at the same time, with original music by Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerard, it got the Grand Prize in that year. “In the Shadow of the Chief” was a great local film by Squamish’s local Ivan Hughes, the story of the first ascent of the Squamish Chief. Ivan Hughes actually started working with us for a number of years after his big success and then went on launching his own film career. “Being Caribou” by Leanne Allison offered a very touching, personal and environmental story from the Canadian North. “The Beckoning Silence” saw Joe Simpson re-telling the tragic story of the first ascent of the Eiger Nordwand – steady direction, amazing cinematography, confident editing, and a beautiful and powerful musical score, a masterpiece! I can go on and on and on and on and on and never stop, how much time do you have Tim?
You also took the VIMFF festival idea back to your other home country and started a different type of festival there. Can you tell a bit about that festival and how it differs from here?
I was born in Czechoslovakia, emigrated to Canada in 1992, started VIMFF in 1998, but still kept strong connections with my homeland. We had this idea, after launching the VIMFF in Vancouver, of doing something similar in my hometown of Bratislava, Slovakia, using similar films and content. The thing is called “Hory a mesto” (Mountains and City), it has been running since 2000 as a hugely successful event with film, guest speakers, special events, a national climbing comps and other events, we have around 8000 people coming to the film shows every year, and about 25 thousand overall. It happens in a big shopping mall in Bratislava called AuPark and the adjacent Cinema City multiplex, we use 4 big screen movie theatres and the shopping mall premises and corridors.
It feels a bit weird on the outside, in a commercial, blasphemous way bringing mountains to the shopping centre, stripping the mountains of their sacred aspects. But actually it makes sense in that we can inspire the city people, bring them back to their roots, inspire them, bring them back to nature. You don’t need to organize a mountain film festival in the middle of the mountains where all you have around is mountains. You want to bring mountains to the city to inspire the crowds, and where else could you do a better job than right in the hell of a shopping mall. Films are similar to VIMFF, maybe 50%, then we add a bunch of local Slovak and Czech films and new arrivals, too.
We have had some amazing guest speaker coming, the likes of John Bachar, Jerry Moffatt, Alex Honnold, Lynn Hill, Steph Davis, Jim Bridwell, Josune Bereziartu, Tommy Caldwell, Will Gadd, Alex Huber can 3 times, Heinz Zak, Beat Kammerlander, Kurt Diemberger – most of them coming for the first time to Eastern/Central Europe. We then often tour with them to Hungary, other places in Slovakia, Prague, Poland. This year, Kevin Jorgeson is coming and will be co-presenting with Adam Ondra on the Dawn Wall – how exciting that is! A trip in a down jacket, down to the Dawn Wall with Kevin and Adam Ondra 🙂
Well thanks again for your time Alan. The festival is truly an awes inspiring event and our community would not be the same without it!
For tickets, please visit the VIMFF website.
