South African audiences are also treated to the screening of an additional five-minute film: the winning submission from the Cape Union Mart Adventure Film Challenge. This annual film competition encourages South African filmmakers and athletes to capture and celebrate local outdoor culture.
Odile Hufkie, Marketing Manager of Cape Union Mart, said: "Every year, local filmmakers are invited to submit a five-minute short film on South African outdoor culture. With this initiative, we aim to provide aspirational South African filmmakers with a platform to celebrate their love for the outdoors, and celebrating the outdoors is what we believe in. The winning submission from this year's Cape Union Mart Adventure Film Challenge is A Trail Runner Portrait by director Ralph Meyer."
Ralph Meyer (32) said: "Last year a friend of mine asked if I'd like to go to one of the screenings of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour. Being a hobby filmmaker and also an adventurous type of guy, this was something that I didn't want to miss. While watching the movies I got the urge to just grab my camera and get out there to shoot an adventure movie."
Meyer decided to make a short film about the beautiful scenery South Africa has to offer in combination with trail running. "I then literally stumbled across Karine (Bezuidenhout) in my search for a protagonist for the short film. Before shooting, we'd never actually met in person, but only written a few emails to get to know each other and exchange details about what I had in mind and the details of the shoot. Karine was exactly what I was looking for. She's an energetic person who enjoys spending every minute outdoors and appreciates her surroundings. Her story about how she started trail running also inspired me. On top of that, she is one of the up-and-coming trail runners in South Africa and has represented South Africa in Switzerland."
The team spent a weekend in April at the Num-Num trails in Mpumalanga to shoot the film.
Meyer continued: "Due to our very tight budget, we had to get all the shots in two-and-a-half days and were shooting from sunrise to sunset. All credit must go to Karine who just kept on running and never seemed to get tired. The most challenging part was to get all the camera equipment to the various locations as the Num-Num trails are hiking trails and we had to carry all the equipment. In a way, this was one of the highlights as the crew were always in a good mood and we had the time of our lives, making jokes all the time. We completed the film at the beginning of June as we all work full time."
The 2015 Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour will be screened at the following Ster-Kinekor cinemas:
Shows start at 8pm and all 11 films are shown at each screening.
Tickets can be purchased directly through Ster-Kinekor. Book online at www.sterkinkeor.com or call Ster-Kinekor Ticket line on +27 (0) 8216789. Ticket prices are the same as a standard Ster-Kinekor ticket.
