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5Point Film Festival founder Julie Kennedy, with husband, Michael Kennedy, launches her inaugural festival this week in Carbondale. (Contributed photo)
CARBONDALE — The name of the new film festival coming to Carbondale — the 5Point Film Festival — is borrowed from rock climbers’ terminology; climbing routes are ranked for difficulty on a five-point system. But festival founder Julie Kennedy had five other points in mind when she conceived the event, and none of them have to do with how high a cliff a skier can launch off, or how big a risk a mountaineer is willing to take to summit a peak.
Instead, those five points seem like the kind that would come from a 53-year-old mother (which Kennedy is), more than from a devoted skier, climber and former publisher of Climbing magazine (which Kennedy also is).
The five principles are: respect, humility, commitment, purpose and balance. Those points, boldly announced on the festival’s website (5pointfilm.org) and by Kennedy in conversation, have become only more significant since last August, when Kennedy began dreaming up 5Point. Over the last month, Kennedy has joined the local adventure community in mourning the loss of several of its own, and questioning the causes behind the deaths.
Last week, a friend of hers, fellow Carbondalian Lathrop Strang, died in an accident on Mount Sopris, and Kennedy was contemplating joining other local climbers in doing a memorial hike of Sopris.
“We’ve seen some bad things happen this past month,” she said. “I’ve got to get my tribe to figure out how to pay attention to this stuff, and scale it back, chip away at it.”
Kennedy believes the pressures on adventurers to take risks have increased vastly in the 30-plus years she has been at the center of the outdoors-action scene.
“I believe the next generation, they’re in a very vulnerable situation,” said Kennedy, who was advertising director, then publisher of Climbing magazine, beginning in 1987. (Her husband, Michael, worked at the magazine beginning in 1974 and eventually became editor. The couple bought the magazine in 1987 and sold it in 1997.) “When we were that age, we had no opportunities whatsoever to make a living being a ski bum, a climbing bum, a kayaking bum. No way.
“In the last four weeks, we’ve seen the pressure on them. Now, we have to drive those five guiding principles into these kids. The only reason we are all alive today is because we followed those principles. And it’s harder and harder to follow them because there are so many more distractions. Our speakers — I’ve told them, you have to drive that idea of humility into them.”
The inaugural 5Point Film Festival, set for May 8-10 at various Carbondale locations, features some 25 films, to be screened over five programs. Kennedy says there will be some breathtaking action to be viewed. Audiences, she added, expect and demand it.
The first film program, titled Rock ‘n’ Reel, features the more extreme action — what Kennedy calls the “hairball stuff.” But she says the footage will be put into perspective; Rock ‘n’ Reel will be introduced by Jim Gilchrist, principal of the Aspen Community School.
“Everything will be with a conscience,” she said. “It’s not just adrenaline. There are stories behind this, some heart and soul. You will learn something.”
Perhaps even more is to be learned in the two panel discussions: Inspiring Passion & Lifestyle With Your Children will feature parent-child athletic teams, including locals Louie and Lou Dawson, fly-fishers Kate and Mark Rutherford, and Kennedy’s husband and son, climbers Michael and Hayden.
Living Passionately Through Adversity will have such speakers as Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest; and locals Aron Ralston, who amputated his own arm to rescue himself from a boulder in a slot canyon in Utah; and snowboarder Chris Klug, who recovered from a liver transplant to earn an Olympic medal.
The festival also includes book signings, talks, social events, a live interview with John McBride, coach of skier Bode Miller, and more, including plenty of reminders that adventure isn’t only about the steepest, fastest and most dangerous. There’s also living to tell about what you did and learning from your adventures.
“My festival is about the idea that these sports are driven by your heart and your soul,” Kennedy said.
stewart@aspentimes.com
Instead, those five points seem like the kind that would come from a 53-year-old mother (which Kennedy is), more than from a devoted skier, climber and former publisher of Climbing magazine (which Kennedy also is).
The five principles are: respect, humility, commitment, purpose and balance. Those points, boldly announced on the festival’s website (5pointfilm.org) and by Kennedy in conversation, have become only more significant since last August, when Kennedy began dreaming up 5Point. Over the last month, Kennedy has joined the local adventure community in mourning the loss of several of its own, and questioning the causes behind the deaths.
Last week, a friend of hers, fellow Carbondalian Lathrop Strang, died in an accident on Mount Sopris, and Kennedy was contemplating joining other local climbers in doing a memorial hike of Sopris.
“We’ve seen some bad things happen this past month,” she said. “I’ve got to get my tribe to figure out how to pay attention to this stuff, and scale it back, chip away at it.”
Kennedy believes the pressures on adventurers to take risks have increased vastly in the 30-plus years she has been at the center of the outdoors-action scene.
“I believe the next generation, they’re in a very vulnerable situation,” said Kennedy, who was advertising director, then publisher of Climbing magazine, beginning in 1987. (Her husband, Michael, worked at the magazine beginning in 1974 and eventually became editor. The couple bought the magazine in 1987 and sold it in 1997.) “When we were that age, we had no opportunities whatsoever to make a living being a ski bum, a climbing bum, a kayaking bum. No way.
“In the last four weeks, we’ve seen the pressure on them. Now, we have to drive those five guiding principles into these kids. The only reason we are all alive today is because we followed those principles. And it’s harder and harder to follow them because there are so many more distractions. Our speakers — I’ve told them, you have to drive that idea of humility into them.”
The inaugural 5Point Film Festival, set for May 8-10 at various Carbondale locations, features some 25 films, to be screened over five programs. Kennedy says there will be some breathtaking action to be viewed. Audiences, she added, expect and demand it.
The first film program, titled Rock ‘n’ Reel, features the more extreme action — what Kennedy calls the “hairball stuff.” But she says the footage will be put into perspective; Rock ‘n’ Reel will be introduced by Jim Gilchrist, principal of the Aspen Community School.
“Everything will be with a conscience,” she said. “It’s not just adrenaline. There are stories behind this, some heart and soul. You will learn something.”
Perhaps even more is to be learned in the two panel discussions: Inspiring Passion & Lifestyle With Your Children will feature parent-child athletic teams, including locals Louie and Lou Dawson, fly-fishers Kate and Mark Rutherford, and Kennedy’s husband and son, climbers Michael and Hayden.
Living Passionately Through Adversity will have such speakers as Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest; and locals Aron Ralston, who amputated his own arm to rescue himself from a boulder in a slot canyon in Utah; and snowboarder Chris Klug, who recovered from a liver transplant to earn an Olympic medal.
The festival also includes book signings, talks, social events, a live interview with John McBride, coach of skier Bode Miller, and more, including plenty of reminders that adventure isn’t only about the steepest, fastest and most dangerous. There’s also living to tell about what you did and learning from your adventures.
“My festival is about the idea that these sports are driven by your heart and your soul,” Kennedy said.
stewart@aspentimes.com
