TAHOE ADVENTURE FILM FESTIVAL: Two-day event livens up South Shore

The major change from previous festivals was the elimination of the judging, with organizers choosing to celebrate all the films instead of looking at them critically. Ten-minute snippets of each film were shown Saturday night.

For more than an hour, the audience sat stunned, gasping, clapping and groaning as if they themselves were landing the jumps or taking the hits.

Among the notables were Epicocity, a film about whitewater kayaking in South America and Africa down mammoth waterfalls and ball-busting rapids. It’s hard enough to remain upright, but doing it at that angle, that’s a special kind of crazy.

In Es Pontas, super-climber Chris Sharma captures on film just why he is among the most elite climbers in the world. The film chronicles his attempt at the world’s hardest deep-water solo climb ever.

Flight School chronicles Chris McNamara’s first year as a base jumper, everything from the close calls to the 5,000-foot cliffs. McNamara has only one goal, get close to the cliffs but don’t hit them.

Yet the image left burned into the eye sockets of most came from one of the shortest films of the evening, Fun Pain. Here’s the formula: Take professional skateboarder Jim Bates and a video camera. Then watch as he takes a fall so bad it makes you hurt. He ends up in the hospital, you order another drink.

Each year the festival seems to top itself, one can only imagine what’s on tap when it turns five next year. Check it out on the web at www.laketahoefilmfestival.com.