The 2015 AdventurePro Video Festival is now just a few weeks away and it appears entries to last year’s event may be outshone as returning winners go head-to-head with new competition.
Presented by the Australian Camps Association, the festival aims to be a platform for some of the best, independently-produced outdoor adventure films set in Australia or New Zealand.
Client services manager for AdventurePro, Colin Kneebone said that, judging by the quality of entries he’s seen so far, the 2015 festival is likely to be even more of a hit than its 2014 debut.
“Entries feature short films from locations including the Glass House Mountains, Blue Mountains, Mount Stromlo, Mount Baw Baw, Tropical North Queensland, the Great Barrier Reef, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, the Tasmanian Wilderness, Winki Pop and Bell’s Beach, Byron Bay and that is just Australia,” Kneebone said.
Audience members can also expect to see films shot in exotic locations such as Far East Russia, Cambodia and Greenland. Activities featured include sea kayaking, stand up paddling, mountaineering, trail running, rock climbing and packrafting among others.
In all the categories AdventurePro is providing prizes for, there’s also a certain focus for education-related subject matter, with a ‘Schools’ category prize on offer.
Winner of last year’s Schools category, outdoor educator Mark Oates is excited to have been named a finalist for his 2015 submission ‘An Outdoor Leadership Journey Down the Collingwood River, Tasmania’.
Mark Oates on the Collingwood River. Photo: Wolfgang Glowacki.
“The AdventurePro Film Festival was something that I got really excited about because of its schools category, offering the chance for both students and teachers to highlight some of the amazing things that schools around the country are doing in the outdoors,” Oates told Wild.
His film features seven year 11 and 12 students from The Hutchins School in Hobart who chose to packraft the Collingwood River as part of their Outdoor Leadership initiative.
“The Collingwood River was selected for its connection to the Franklin River and the incredible history that this area has,” Oates explained. “The story of the Indigenous Australians who first inhabited the area, the hardship experienced by the Huon Piners, of Deans and Hawkins who were the first people to paddle the entire Franklin and of course the incredible story of The Franklin Blockade in the early 1980s, all meant that the journey offered an incredible amount of educational opportunities for our senior students.”
In contrast, Mark Wiebenga is a first time entrant to the festival, but his film also revolves around paddling Tasmania’s wild rivers.
Wiebenga’s first film is a new entrant to the finalists tally for 2015.
“This is the first time I’ve ever entered a video into a competition, so I was genuinely surprised to hear that my film was one of the finalists,” he said.
In order to shoot the film, Wiebenga (who’s also an impassioned outdoor educator) spent days rafting the Franklin’s Class 4 rapids with a DSLR and GoPro. Not only has the effort paid off, Wiebenga also reveled in being able to work in “one of the most amazing places [he’s] ever been”.
“I love how wild and remote the Franklin Wilderness is – the varying weather and associated river levels, the amazing scenery and the friendly people I met and worked with.
Wiebenga expressed his hope that the film motivates people to get outdoors, even if it doesn’t take out one of AdventurePro’s prizes.
“I think there is a ‘nature deficit’ within a lot of Australians. I see it all the time when teaching Outdoor Education,” he said. “I think that it’s such a shame, as there is so much to be learnt, and so much fun to be had in the outdoors!”
Another finalist in this year’s festival that found success in 2014 is Darius Devas. Devas was winner of the ‘Open’ category last year and has returned with a film entitled ‘Ocean Talk’ in which he explores the connections people have with the sea.
Devas spent hours in the surf filming for ‘Ocean Talk’. Photo: Ben Lee.
“The ocean really helps me create balance in my life and it has played a huge part in helping me get over some major life hurdles,” Devas said. “I’ve currently just returned to Byron Bay where I grew up. After ten years of living in the city, the ocean finally called me back.”
Featuring seascapes and beautiful ocean photography, Devas’ film also features interviews with Winston McCall (frontman for popular metalcore band Parkway Drive) and bodyboarder Dave Winchester. The overriding theme for all three men is the way the ocean has had a formative, consistently positive effect on their lives.
“I hope that in sharing stories about passionate people living their lives in inspiring and honest ways, I might inspire audiences to not imitate what they watch, but do what they feel called to do,” said Devas.
“I hope that the inspiration comes from the action taken, not just what is being done.”
The AdventurePro Video Festival 2015 will have two screenings on May 2 and 3 at the Mansfield Armchair Cinema. Tickets are available via the AdventurePro website.