MOUNTAIN FILM PROGRAM AT TELLURIDE OPERA HOUSE

25 Dec MOUNTAIN FILM PROGRAM AT TELLURIDE OPERA HOUSE

Event at historic Sheridan Opera House, Monday, 12/26/2011, 6:00 pm, only $10

Every year around the holidays, Mountainfilm is Telluride hosts an evening hosts a family-friendly event. This year,’s programs features a series of short films.

In “Winter,” Brian Ward discovers an unexpected and new-found love for water in its frozen and expanded form.

Mickey Smith’s “Dark Side of the Lens” is a powerful, brooding account of life as a surf photographer. Join Mickey on an epic journey as he explores some of Ireland’s heaviest and coldest waves.

After losing his legs in a grenade blast in Iraq, 101st Airborne Ranger Heath Calhoun endures a tortuous recovery. Years later, the Virginia native finds freedom in an unlikely location, on the ski slopes of Aspen, Colorado. Calhoun earns a coveted chance to represent his country again–as an athlete on the 2010 Paralympic ski team. With gold in the balance, Calhoun commits everything to the challenge. “The Fall Line” is a glimpse at Heath’s story.

Sometimes, words aren’t necessary. In “Deep/Shinsetsu,” filmmaker Masaki Sekiguchi lets the images speak for themselves. Filmed in Japan after what appears to be a 100-year storm, this short is a melodic and meditative portrait of skiing powder—chest-deep powder. The film is stripped of the genre’s usual racket: no voice-overs, helicopters or hip-hop music here. Instead, it cuts straight to the essentials—the wash of white and the joy of bounding through bottomless snow.

“Scotland” does not naturally twin with “linked turns,” but in Anna Evert’s “11 Degrees” a little Scottish ski resort continues spinning the motor on its rope tow. Skiers keep descending on one small swatch of browning snow. And whatever the conditions, Scottish humor and enthusiasm shine in the ski attendant, a mild-mannered man of the mountains.

Other films on the program, which begins at 6 p.m., are : “White Out,” “Sponsor Me Jake,” and “Desert River.”