Audiences watch a ski film at a recent 5Point Film Festival. The event, now in its 17th year, will be held April 24-28 in Carbondale.
In 2007, Climbing Magazine founder Julie Kennedy launched a one-night event in Carbondale featuring adventure films. Taking inspiration from a climbing term, she called it the 5Point Adventure Film Festival.
What was a homegrown affair now spans five days and is one of the most respected outdoor, mountain and adventure film festivals in the world. The 17th annual event kicks off on Wednesday and runs through Sunday.
Guided by five principles — commitment, respect, humility, purpose and balance — 5Point seeks to build community and inspire change through visual storytelling, engaging dialogue and acting as a beacon for global stewardship.
“The festival is a way to bring together the community around outdoor activities and champion documentary films that entertain, inspire, connect and educate folks about their environment and the outdoors,” said Luis Yllanes, executive director of the festival.
Film topics run the gamut of everything from skiing to mountain climbing, surfing to fishing, skateboarding to running and more. 5Point, which features documentary short films under an hour, receives close to 400 submissions, and just over 40 will screen at the festival. Yllanes said one of the most distinguishing features of the festival is that it is known as being a festival for filmmakers.
“Our identity as a film festival is to be there to help filmmakers, by offering the best space to showcase their films, offering grants, and supporting them through our filmmaker-specific programming at the festival,” Yllanes said. “We give out $50,000 in grant money every year to filmmakers. Several films we’ve funded have played other prestigious festivals and that’s a real testimony to our support of filmmakers.”
Yllanes’ goal in programming the festival is to create an event that is interactive; attendees are participants in the proceedings.
“It’s not just people sitting there watching films,” Yllanes said. “You get to be part of Q&As, panel discussions, workshops, there’s a 5K run Saturday morning, we have music events. It’s an immersive experience.”
One of the noteworthy Q&As takes place Friday at 11 a.m. at El Dorado Bar & Lounge where New York Times best-selling author Jedediah Jenkins will be reading from his new book, “Mother, Nature.”
Jenkins is the festival’s special guest. He will wear several hats over the course of the weekend, including serving as host for the Wednesday opening-night community screening at the Crystal Theater at 7 p.m.
Thursday at 5 p.m., the festival is sponsoring an art exhibition at The Launchpad in Carbondale featuring the works of renowned adventurer and filmmaker Renan Ozturk and artist and surfer Tre’Lan Michael, both of whom have films in this year’s festival. At the recreation center, local artist Lara Whitley will be premiering an on-site installation and festival artist Hugh McCormick will showcase his unique visual style through a site-specific outdoor scene diorama. The center’s Thursday film screenings start at 7 p.m.
On Friday, in addition to the Jenkins reading at El Dorado at 11 a.m., a program featuring films by students in the Roaring Fork Valley begins at 1 p.m. at the recreation center; a panel discussion on issues facing the outdoor and adventure film industries takes place at 3 p.m. at El Dorado (free to the public); and the Friday Film Program takes place at 7 p.m. at the Carbondale Recreation Center.
The festival kicks into high gear on Saturday. Events begin at 8 a.m. and go until midnight. Many of these events are free.
“We try to offer some free programs that are accessible to as many people as possible, Yllanes said. We want it to be a community event. ”
At 8 a.m., 5Point presents the second annual 5Point 5K Independence Run and Hike. The race starts and finishes at Independence Run & Hike, 901 Hwy 133 in Carbondale.
At 10 a.m., a program will include professional rock climber and personality Timmy O’Neill as host. Filmmaker Ben Knight’s new work, “Mirasol,” will be featured.
A central part of 5Point’s mission is to nurture and support the next generation of adventure filmmakers. With that goal in mind, for the third year in a row, the festival will present “The Adventure Filmmakers Pitch” at Steve’s Guitars in which five finalists pitch a film project to a juried panel, with the winner walking away with $15,000 to make a film and a spot in the 2025 festival. This “Shark Tank” style event is free and open to the public.
At 3 p.m. 5Point presents a free screening of festival films at the Crystal Theater in Carbondale. Four adventure entries and the world premieres of two festival films “Designed by Disaster” and “Moving Mountains” are on tap.
Fitz Cahall is host of an outdoors-oriented podcast called “The Dirtbag Diaries” that is a collaboration between writers, photographers, influencers and artists. He will be recording his podcast live on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at El Dorado.
Saturday finishes off with an after-party with the band Rattlesnake Milk from Austin, Texas, at El Dorado.
On Sunday, the festival presents “5 Point Family Day” featuring a family friendly film program that starts at noon at the recreation center followed by a free ice cream social. Sundae Artisan Ice Cream will debut an exclusive flavor, “5Point Rocky Mountain Adventure.” The film program and ice cream social is a “pay what you can ” event and free for children 12 and under.
Asked what the overriding theme of this year’s festival is, Yllanes said, “I’d say the theme is not taking for granted what we have, and doing what we can to protect it.”
