#bmff

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I sit through the festival and wonder the whole time,  Through each epic shot and thrilling ride.  I get in my 4x4 chevy tracker and ask my sister as we drive home,  Snow-chains stored under my seat and roof racks awaiting kayak.  The next day at the climbing gym we hash out our favourites, I ask the guys but they seem nonplussed. It is two days later and I am still trying to count the number of women portrayed to equal more than one hand. One finger really, but need for this to not be quite so absurd allows me to count that one guy’s wife I saw a flash of, as ‘portrayal’.  It eats at me, snakes around in my stomach,  In my most favourite environment, my place I feel most like myself, most at home, most belonging -  Apparently, I do not belong.  And then it hits me harder:  Did I see one person of colour in this film fest of ode to the outdoors?  Where were the queers sending it on the wall?  Minorities who have been made resilient by every damned day.  Where the hell are they?  Not on the big screen, evidently.  - Wild Winds

This year, I am disappointed.  Don’t get me wrong, it was thrilling.  I go back and play them again,  The music pounds into my bones and I feel a rush as bikes whiz by,  Breaking white trail,  Smashing through the friction that is a mountainside.  And the German guys using human power alone - Wow. I am in awe, Or, more to the point, disbelief, In the power of the human body. (And maybe a few shreds of insanity.) They bike and ski across the snowy peaks of the Alps,  And oh man, do they deliver.  But, I can’t stop thinking,  Where are the women?  Oh good, thanks, I think, the one woman who graced a shot,  Of 8 reunited mountain biking guys,  Oh good, a wife was allowed.  Cool.  The evening’s MC introduces a film, including the phrase,  “He’s got it all, lives in Tahiti, a blond wife, and gorgeous children.” The words leap at me,  Entirely unexpected.  Our MC is a woman.  And finally, the best film of the evening,  The only one this year with an actual narrative,  A story to share beyond flashes of adrenaline and powder marked by the rally cry of music to remind you that these men are warriors,  There’s Margo.  A 19 year old woman crushing it in the world of climbing,  Quietly, crushing it, I must add.  An unexpected source of badassery, apparently.  Or so says the 7 minute prequel to her climb, A running list of boys (yes, boys, I must say),  Expressing their shock -  Their aghast!  We never expected, we never thought, WHO COULD OF KNOWN!?  And why would they? Why would they ever have expected their friend Margo, who could climb 5.14s, to even WANT to climb a 5.15, let alone send it?  A female? Pfff, we never even considered it.  And send it she did,  Not even needing the pounding music to let you know that her skills were epic,  Just bloodied hands, silly faces, endless falls, endless tries, and finally -  Raw tears of success.  - Wild Winds