‘If You’re Pushing the Edge,
\nEventually You Find the Edge’ is the line delivered by the protagonist of the
\nmovie Free Solo, which got the Academy Award. It also seems to be the slogan
\nof the Alpine Film Festival, taking place in late February- early March in
\nthree mountain resorts in Romania. Brasov, Predeal, and Busteni were the hosts
\nof the fourth edition of the only festival dedicated to mountain culture and
\neducation in Romania.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The festival is
\nan event built around film, books, and photography, with the intent to promote
\nmountain civilization with its heritage tourism, ecological, economic,
\neducational, and athletic values. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Dan Burlac,
\nartistic director of the festival, told us why he felt the need to have such an
\nevent: <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
I believe that the mountains need such an event dedicated to mountain culture
\nand education, because the mountains are fascinating. Which is why every weekend, people who love
\nthe mountains, and not only them, always go there. And there is a saying I
\nlove: going to the mountains means going home. And I believe that this was what
\ncreated the urge to come up with this festival, dedicated to movies about
\nmountains. However, it is not only about movies, it’s also about books,
\nphotography, athletic competitions, mountain culture and education in all its
\ncomplexity. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Dan Burlac confirmed that the
\nfestival had a spectacular start: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
We opened the festival with the award-winning film ‘Free Solo’, it was
\na tremendous success, it sold out, it had a record audience in the Grand Hall
\nof Brasov University.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The feature
\ndocumentary ‘Free Solo’ by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi won the Best
\nDocumentary award at the 91st edition of the Oscars. It was its
\ncreator’s first nomination in this category. Alex Honnold, the free climber who
\nfeatured in the movie, told CNBC: I’ve worked on my climbing skills so much
\nthat my comfort zone is quite large. So these things that I’m doing that look pretty
\noutrageous, to me they seem quite normal. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
After such a start, the entertaining
\nevents kept on coming, according to Dan Burlac: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
It has been an eventful week, with
\nextremely interesting screenings, with movies about mountains, with the
\nRomanian competition, with the international competition, the theaters were
\npacked with film lovers in the Romanian competition and we were very happy
\nbecause of that, as we also want to develop the mountain film production here
\nin Romania. We had three sold-out screenings, it was a movie made by two people
\nfrom Brasov, Dan Dinu and Cosmin Dumitrache, about the American parks. It was
\nan extraordinary screening, with a cinema theater packed with almost 500
\npeople. We were so happy the screening of the film was premiered in Brasov. The
\nphotography exhibition themed ‘The Forest’ and mounted in the Assembly Square
\nis accessible to those traveling to Brasov until late March. It is an
\nextraordinary exhibition, with very beautiful photographs. We had a very interesting
\ndebate, cinema and nature, chaired by Irina Margareta Nistor, with guests from
\nSpain, Italy, France who talked about how you can promote the mountain area
\nthrough images, and also natural parks and other ecological assets. It was an
\nextremely successful event. Obviously we had the Great Gala of Romanian Film,
\nwhere awards went to winners in the Athlete of the Year and Sports Master
\ncategory as well as to the winner in Romania’s best climber category, and for
\nthe first time ever in the festival prizes went to those in mountain running,
\nhang-gliding and orienteering category.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Other
\nlocal color events were the Mountain Climbing Day in Busteni on March 2nd, a day dedicated to
\nRomanian climbing with the Climbing gala, now in its 41st edition,
\nthis year’s theme being new generations; then there was the Ski Schools Cup in
\nPredeal, the ski touring Contest, the Predeal Vertical Race, on March 3rd, then we had the Predeal Mountain
\nRescue Cup’s inaugural edition on February 28th, but also an event themed the Mountain Cuisine,
\nincluding mountain food sampling. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Here is what Dan Burlac also had to say on the issue.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
It was a complex event, we are very
\nhappy people have started to come to the festival, the festival caught on, we
\nhope we can expand in the years to come. We had keynote guests, we had Aldo
\nAudisio, the director of the biggest Mountain Museum, based in Turin, and also
\na member of the Alliance for Mountain Film Festival’s Steering Committee. We
\nalso had the director of the Mountain Cinema in France, Michel Zalio, who is
\nalso a mountain guide and a very good filmmaker, we had a French Mountain
\nGendarme, who came from Chamonix, he explained how it works in the Mont Blanc
\nmassif, again an event that drew a very large audience. And for children, we
\nhad wonderful things, as Cristian Lascu, the renowned explorer and
\nspeleologist, in a hall packed with children, gave a conference on speleology,
\nabout Emil Racovita in Antarctica. It was an edition that made us all very
\nhappy and I believe the Alpine Film Festival managed to find its place!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
It was a festival replete with breathtaking images
\nand adrenaline rush.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A festival that has been gaining momentum in Romania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":135682,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42520],"tags":[43190,43191,43192],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-135681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-romania","tag-alpine-film-festival","tag-free-solo","tag-mountain-tourism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n