* Screening: Saturday, 11:30 AM

A film festival within a film festival! Up-and-coming young filmmakers share their passion for Yosemite in the 1st annual Youth in Yosemite Short Film Contest. The themes “Celebrating Nature” and “What Yosemite Means” are designed to celebrate art, beauty, inspiration, the nature of Yosemite, and a personal connection to the park. 10 films will be shown, awards will be presented, and a panel discussion with the youth filmmakers will be held.

* Screenings: Friday 8:30 PM, Saturday 2:00 PM, Sunday 2:00 PM

Alex Honnold has become known as the boldest soloist of his generation. In this dangerous game, how does he balance pure ambition with self-preservation? From highball boulder first ascents to 5.13 free solos, from far-flung trad climbing adventures, to speed records on The Nose, Honnold wrestles with this question in preparation for his biggest adventure yet – the Yosemite Triple. In under 19 hours he climbs Mt. Watkins, El Cap, and Half Dome, 95% of it free solo.

* Screening: Friday 5:00 PM, Sunday 3:00 PM

“A fascinating glimpse into the obsessive culture of rock climbing…” — Sally Potter (The Man Who Cried)

In the 1970s, teenage misfits take to the cliffs, live out of tents, and eat peanut butter for every meal. With 16mm archival footage and campfire interviews with John Bachar, Henry Barber, Lynn Hill and more, hear how the figures who revolutionized free-climbing created a Utopia of risk and innocence. (Part of the Brave New Wild project.)

Steve’s Take: Dirtbags and legends: Interviews with John Long, Lynn Hill, John Bachar (shortly before he died), Ron Kauk, old Super-8 movies, groovy music, and cool animations: This film is basically a trip back to the early days of free climbing in Yosemite. A spin-off from a larger project, the filmmakers will be on hand to share stories and present a sneak preview of their upcoming feature length film Brave New Wild.

Photo by Glen Denny

USA 1968 (digitally remastered, 2013) / 60 mins.
A film by Fred Padula. Photographed by Glen Denny (special guest).

* Screenings: Friday 7:00 PM, Sunday 12:00 PM

Grand Prize: Banff Film Festival, Telluride Mountainfilm, Trento Film Festival.

“Amongst climbing films, El Capitan is without peer in poetic beauty.” — Royal Robbins

“El Capitan is the best rock climbing film… period! No other film compares.” — David Brower

“The line between gulps of void and solid rock straight up and down – hair-raising, funny, pure, beautiful.” — Gary Snyder

“El Capitan beautifully captures the essence of our struggle with the first ascent on the Nose. This film is fantastic!” — Warren Harding

“The best climbing film I have ever seen.” — Yvon Chouinard

Click here for complete backstory by the late Michael Ybarra (Alpinist 40).

For notes on the making of the film and on its remarkable digital restoration, click here for official El Capitan Film website.

* Parental guidance note.

* Screenings: Friday 10:00 AM, Saturday 7:30 PM, Sunday 3:30 PM

Experience a year with the people who work and live in the harshest place on Earth. Filled with never-before-seen images painstakingly filmed for over 10 years, including 9 winters of unending darkness.

http://frozensouth.com/

* Screenings: Friday 4:30, Saturday 2:00

Fifteen years ago, Juan Martinez, an at-risk teenager from south-central Los Angeles, stepped off a bus in Grand Teton National Park and saw the stars for the first time in his life. The experience inspired him to connect more diverse and urban youth to nature, and in the process, he met Vanessa Torres, a park ranger, and fell in love all over again. This story reveals the compelling journey that led Juan to the Tetons, to Vanessa, and to his renewed vision of the American Dream: one that blooms out of love, inclusion, and our living, breathing national parks.

* Screenings: Friday 6:00 PM, Satuday 5:30 PM, Sunday 4:30 PM

Thousands of Visitors, Thirty Filmmakers, One Day in Yosemite.

“Its 15 minutes tell a deeply human story of one of America’s greatest wild, natural places, and does an awesome job of weaving the two seemingly-at-odds storylines together in a way that reflects what the whole National Parks system represents: Humanity and nature as codependents working together for mutual preservation.” — Peter Koch, The Active Times

* Screening: Saturday 3:00 PM

Over 100 years ago, before there was such a thing as a National Park Ranger, Yosemite was under the care and protection of the U.S. Army. In 1903, Sergeant Elizy Boman, Troop “K” Ninth Cavalry, was dispatched to Yosemite National Park. He was a Buffalo Soldier, a Black Indian, and through the compelling performance of Park Ranger and historian Shelton Johnson, we hear Sergeant Boman’s stories and experiences through time. Filmed on location throughout the beautiful high country of Yosemite, this unique film provides a window to Yosemite’s past.

* Screenings: Friday 4:00 PM, Sunday 1:30 PM

Push It is the story of filmmaker Jen Randall and her new-found climbing partner Jackie Sequeira preparing for their first ever big wall – El Capitan in Yosemite, which goes far from smoothly from start to finish. Along the way, Jen visits some of her climbing heroines for inspiration, including Mina Leslie-Wujastyk bouldering in Magic Wood, Switzerland, Natalie Berry sport climbing in Malham, Yorkshire, and a local hero Vicki Mayes trad climbing in Dunkeld, Scotland. Two years in the making, overcoming broken bones, awful weather, a lack of funds and several crisis of confidence, Push It is a film about testing your limits and chasing adventure.

Join Yosemite entertainer Tom Bopp, live at the piano, for a delightfully nostalgic multi-media romp with old Yosemite songs, rare recordings, archival films and images documenting 100 years of the Yosemite Experience from the 1870s to the 1960s.