Above and Beyond Dream (2010)
In a field of already spectacular films this masterpiece will have you shaking your head in disbelief and muttering: Could anything be more perfect? Benjamin Jordan’s idea was simple; to power paraglide across Canada, set a Guinness world record but above all, to raise funds for children’s camps across his great nation. He achieved all [...]
Back of Beyond (1954)
A stunning verité epic that whilst ostensibly a documentary contains elements of fiction and fantasy that make for a rather unsettling experience. Never has straight factual been so weird. An award-winning Australian documentary film produced and directed by John Heyer for the Shell Film Unit. In terms of breadth of distribution, awards garnered, and critical [...]
Call of the White (2009)
The Adventure Travel Film Festival is always keen to debunk the myth that the square jawed ‘adventurer’ is male. An all-woman team attacks the South Pole and is victorious! Turn your computer on and start googling ‘Felicity Aston’. This staggeringly adventurous alpha-female ice maiden is a legend in the European snow-scene and rightly so. In [...]
First Overland (1958)
This 16mm film is so bursting with colour and life it almost hurts to know this magical age of innocence is gone forever. In 1955 six students from Oxford and Cambridge set out in two Land-Rovers to drive from London to Singapore. And why not? After all, no-one had ever done it before. Several expeditions [...]
Grass (1924)
As well as jaw-dropping long distance travel this stunning film serves up great granite slabs of astonishing social history and anthropology. Once you’ve seen it, you will be richer. It’s unusual to bring the Third Reich into this brochure but here goes: Allegedly, Hitler’s favourite film was King Kong. The giant ape’s tragic journey from [...]
Himalayan Adventure (1958)
An inspiring short film from the 1950s ‘housewife explorers’ who defied convention and made history. In 1958, three English housewives bought a Land Rover and drove it all the way from London to Zanskar, then a part of Tibet. Over five months Anne Davies, Eve Sims, and Antonia Deacock drove 16,000 miles before travelling another [...]
Le Grande Detour (2009)
With no unkindness intended, round-the-world bicyclists are a dime a dozen. However, within that listing, gifted, artistic film-makers are super rare — but we’ve got one here. Delphine and Damien have done a truly stupendous around the world tandem bicycle ride. But cycling is a slow, steady rhythmic world that doesn’t favour those who want [...]
Mazungu (2008)
A film that adds weight to the notion that all the coolest adventures are happening on water. The mighty Congo River rises in Zambia and after 3000 miles of lazy uncoiling, discharges into the Atlantic. Recent foreign office posts advise that the interior of The Democratic Republic of Congo is not to be visited by [...]
Mondo Enduro (1995)
This isn’t the world’s most famous motorcycle TV show, but it should be. Starring and directed by our very own curator, Austin Vince, Mondo Enduro is the original adventure-motorcycling movie that inspired all others, including Ewan MacGregor’s Long Way Round. In 1995 seven school friends set off from London on second-hand Suzuki DR350s with home-made [...]
Motosyberia (2007)
An incredibly imaginative film of one of the toughest motorcycle trips ever undertaken, a masterpiece! Maciek Swinarski is one of the top adventure film-makers in the world today. His latest film is the story of a seriously hardcore motorcycle ride from his native Poland to Magadan in eastern Siberia, and has made him a household [...]
Paddle to Seattle (2010)
A 1300-mile sea kayak trip down Canada’s Pacific coast. Breathtaking scenery galore but also an utterly perfectly crafted travel film. Watch and learn! Have you ever built a wooden canoe from scratch, packed it with snacks and camping gear and then spent the next three months with one of your best friends? If not then [...]
Ride the Divide (2009)
The Ride the Divide mountain bike race is barely comprehensible, such is the scale of ambition required to organise it and the sheer old-fashioned guts strength to complete it! From Canada to Mexico the cyclists furiously pedal 2700 miles of trails and paths. Since the ‘Divide’ is, of course, the Rocky Mountains, they are forced [...]
The Headless Valley (1957)
A 1950s married couple take an extreme canoeing trip into the Northwest Territories with not a scrap of Goretex in sight… In 1957 Melvin and Ethel Ross of Calgary, Canada, travelled alone by canoe through one of the roughest and remote areas of the world to reach their destination of the Headless Valley in the [...]
Twice Upon a Caravan (1933)
A terrific solo motorcycle adventure and priceless sociological archive all in one. All delivered with a hushed breath of quiet humility and gratitude. In 1932 New Yorker and architecture student Robert Fulton Jnr had finished a year’s post-grad study in London. Most Yanks would have boarded a steamer at Southampton and been home in a [...]
Wakhan (2009)
Short, but perfectly formed. This film is full of hope, love and Afghanistan. Kyszytof Samborski is a hero to this festival. Totally oblivious to the traditional ‘off-the-beaten-track’ destinations he and his buddy Iza head for Afghanistan. Despite the journey being everything, their story only starts once their motorbikes have already ridden 7000 miles from their [...]
Yenisey River Expedition (2001)
If you want tough, this is it. It’s hard to say what’s more impressive, this breathtakingly adventurous expedition or the sheer skill and tenacity required to film it so superbly. It’s not all about engines at the Adventure Travel Film Festival. The Yenisey River Expedition charts the first ever descent, from source to sea, of [...]