Radical Reels 2013: The films

Join us September 5 in Chapel Hill and September 6 in Winston-Salem as Great Outdoor Provision Co. hosts the 2013 Radical Reels Film Tour! There are 11 films in the 2013 Radical Reels Tour, covering freeskiing, paraskiing, snowboarding, whitewater kayaking, sea kayaking, skateboarding, mountain biking, flying in a wingsuit and rock climbing.

Being There (special edit)

In 2002, Filip Christensen, a young teen at the time, got some ski buddies together to film a movie. His camera has been rolling ever since. In this, his 8th movie under the Field Productions label, the 25-year-old and his buds — now including some of the world’s top free-skiers — do big jumps, scream down steeps, ski a lift cable (it’s only a poma lift, but still), and do things with skis that Rossignol never intended.

Endless Roads (special edit)

Here’s something you don’t see much of in these films: females. Fifteen days, 7 girls, 21 longboards (of the skateboard variety) and a classic VW microbus results in the chick flick version of the more common buddy radical reel, only with more eating, sightseeing and application of makeup. Longboarding footage is a mix of open road downhill and urban exploring. Shot in Spain.

Further (special edit)

  • Snowboarding
  • USA, 2012
  • 26 minutes
  • Directors/producers: Jeremy Jones and Jon Klaczkiewicz
  • Website: www.tetongravity.com

Jeremy Jones loves to snowboard. He also loves getting deep into the backcountry, especially in wilderness areas, where he can ride clean lines down near-vertical slopes in some of the world’s wildest terrain. How wild? At one point he’s on belay with his board on his back. At another, he has to tunnel through a cornice of snow to reach the line. (“Cornice” is one of those terms you typically hear in tandem with “avalanche.”) And you know how it’s often hard to get a feel for steepness in a movie? Not the case when Jones points his camera down the aforementioned tunnel, then drops in. Shot in the Japanese Alps, Atomfjella Mountains of Norway, Austria’s Karwendel Range, Wrangell Mountains of Alaska and California’s Sierra Mountains.

Lacon de Catalonia

  • Mountain and dirt bike jumping
  • Norway, 2012
  • 5 minutes
  • Director: Niels Windfeldt
  • Website: www.antimedia.no

“When Andreu Lacondeguy purchased a new bike-training compound outside the city of Barcelona, little did he know that so much big air was possible on such a small piece of land!” That’s the word from the trailer, a promotion device usually tinged with a bit of hyperbole. Then again, how often do you need to bring in a helicopter to adequately capture bike jumps? Big air, indeed.

Of Souls+Water: The Shapeshifter

The last installment of Skip Armstrong’s five-part Of Souls + Water series, The Shapeshifter taps the big water of Quebec’s Ottawa River to probe the supernatural. Things get truly otherworldly when whitewater kayaker Ben Marr straps a flare to the back of his boat and paddles the big waves at night. Great footage, but Armstrong goes a step further in his work by weaving in a story.

Reel Rock 7: La Dura Dura

This segment of the Reel Rock 7 climbing film features veteran Chris Sharma vs. wunderkind Adam Ondra “in a gentlemen’s battle for the first ascent of Catalunya’s La Dura Dura, which was to be the world’s first 5.15c.” It’s competitive, sure, but the two climbers display a mutual support for one another that perhaps only other climbers can appreciate. Also recommending the film are the climbers contrasting styles: the laid-back vet vs. the wiry, vocal (in a grunting Venus Williams kind of way) newcomer. Winner of the Radical Reels Night People’s Choice Award.

The Rollerman

  • Descending mountain roads in a suit of rollerblade wheels
  • Germany, 2012
  • 3 minutes
  • Director/producer: Danny Strasser
  • Website: www.danny-strasser.com

When we saw German Danny Strasser in last year’s Radical Reels tour, he was skateboarding down the bobsled tracks of Europe. This time around, he’s with Jean-Yves Blondeau, the Rollerman. Rollerman dons a protective suit covered with rollerblade wheels (including on his back) and takes on the steepest mountain roads of Europe. Three minutes worth (and probably not much more) of fun.

Wanna Ride?

  • Paraskiing
  • France, 2012
  • 3 minutes
  • Director: Antonin Michaud-Soret
  • Website: www.ahstudio.fr

So what if you ski off a 150-foot cliff or suddenly come up on a rock garden with no way around. No problem, provided you’re skiing with a parasail strapped to your back. Speed-riders Maxence Cavalade and François Bon perform an aerial duet in the French Alps as they mix skiing and flying at will. It’s a graceful, if baffling, art form made even more so when they ski/fly through trees and do flips.

Where the Trail Ends (special edit)

Ever been on a mountain bike trail and thought, “Whoa! This is sketchy?” Well, take away the trail and you have “Where the Trail Ends,” a true exercise in dicey riding. Jeremy Grant takes his camera and riders to the Gobi Desert in China, Fraser River in Canada, Nepal and Argentina and catches the action — riding down rock spines, dropping into washouts, visiting Third World ERs — where the trail ceases to exist.

Whitewater Grand Prix – Big Water Enduro

Some of the world’s best whitewater kayakers race down spectacular whitewater in Chile. What’s fun about the Grand Prix is you have dozens of top paddlers going after the same lines at the same time. And you thought NASCAR gets crazy.

Wingsuit Downhill Target Punch

  • Wingsuit flying
  • Switzerland, 2012
  • 5 minutes
  • Directors/producers: Alexander Polli and Alexander Weibel
  • Website: www.alexanderpolli.com

Of all the nuttiness displayed on the Radical Reels Tour, “Target Punch” takes the Rad Reel d’Or. No matter how many You Tube videos you see of Alexander Polli zipping about in his wingsuit, it doesn’t get old. Perhaps that’s because he’s FLYING! And not slowly circling like those buzzards on your double century training ride. He’s cooking, flying up to 155 miles per hour with the objective, this time, to clip the top off a slalom gate (which, spoiler alert, he does).