2009 RPFF CATEGORY AWARD WINNING FILMS
BEST CANOEING FILM
Digging Water: A Voyage by North Canoe
Duration: 53 min [Festival Version 29 min]
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
In 2008, over 300 paddlers set out to commemorate one of the world's greatest geographers and explorers, David Thompson. Their 66-day journey retraced Thompson's historic fur trade route from Rocky Mountain House to Thunder Bay. These modern-day voyageurs traversed four provinces, three drainages and two centuries worth of Canadian history.
Director: Jay Macmillan
Producer: David Thompson Brigade Society
Website: www.2008thompsonbrigade.com
BEST SEA KAYAKING FILM
Eastern Horizons
Duration: [Festival Version 19 min]
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2009
This new film blends North America's east coast environments with world-class sea kayakers, incredible wildlife and compelling stories of people whose lives are deeply connected to the Atlantic Ocean. The film travels from the mangrove swamps of the Carolinas to the icebergs of Newfoundland, from the tidal flows around the Bay of Fundy to the urban landscapes of New York City.
Director: Bryan Smith and Lise-Anne Beyries
Producer: Bryan Smith/Reel Water Productions
Website: www.reelwaterproductions.com
BEST KAYAK FISHING FILM
Kayak Fishing: Game On
Duration: 60 min [Festival Version 15 min]
Year Produced: 2009
Year Released: 2009
Game On follows renowned big-game kayak angler Jim Sammons around North America on the kayak fishing adventure of a lifetime. Viewers see fights with tarpon in Florida, halibut in Alaska, 300-pound marlin in Baja, stripers in Chesapeake Bay and muskie in Canada.
Director: Will Richardson
Producer: Ken Whiting
Website: www.helipress.com
BEST ENVIRONMENTAL PADDLING FILM
MeraMec River: Miracles & Milestones
Duration: 26 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
Ten journalists, outdoor writers, videographers, conservationists and citizens depart from MeraMec State Park in Sullivan, Missouri, on a sticky day in mid-July. Their objective: a six-day, 108-mile canoe trip to document 40 years of river restoration work in the Meramec Basin by countless individuals and organizations.
Director: Jim Karpwicz and John Baker
Producer: Jim Karpwicz, John Baker and The Open Space Council
Website: www.openspacecouncilsh.org
BEST WHITEWATER FILM
Pulse
Duration: 36 min [Festival Version 17 min]
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
The latest action whitewater kayaking film starring Tao Berman, from the creator of the renowned TWITCH films. Pulse follows Berman and friends around Chile, Lake Superior, Mexico and Washington and includes stunning footage, interviews and three unique action segments.
Director: Tao Berman
Producer: Eric Link
Website: www.taoberman.com/videos
BEST SHORT FILM
The Snowy River—Reflections of a River Lost
Duration: 8 min
Year Produced: 2007/2008
Year Released: 2008
The Snowy River—Reflections of a River Lost centres on community concerns about the state of Australia’s Snowy River and the mismanagement by various governments in providing a sustainable solution.
Director and Producer: Les Herstik
Website: www.les.herstik.com
BEST ADVENTURE/TRAVEL PADDLING FILM
This is the Sea 4: New Zealand Circumnavigation
Duration: 48 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
A gritty edge-of-your-seat portrayal of a couple's battle against the elements while kayaking 2400 kilometres around the South Island of New Zealand. Justine Curgenven and Barry Shaw struggle into 40-knot headwinds, get thrown around in crashing surf and cope with illness and a helicopter evacuation in remote Fiordland. Close encounters with albatrosses, dolphins and whales and the kindness of strangers keep them going for 67 days on one of the world’s toughest kayak journeys.
Director and Producer: Justine Curgenven
Website: www.cackletv.com
BEST DOCUMENTARY PADDLING FILM
Ausable Marathon Canoe Race
Duration: 20 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
This film explores the intensity and passion that drives the men and women who endure 15 hours of non-stop paddling in one of the most grueling paddlesport races in North America. It reveals both the allure and agony of the physical and mental challenges that face elite canoe racers in their quest to surpass their dreams.
Director and Producer: Dan Bertalan
Website: www.greatoutdoorsmultimedia.com
SHORTLISTED WORLD TOUR FILMS
A River's Last Breath
Duration: 13 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2009
After a fatal introduction to rafting, China turned its back on multi-use river management and focused on building dams with even more vigour than U.S. developers in the 1960s. This film tells the story of that deadly rafting history and Travis Winn's attempt to change the way China thinks about its waterways.
Director: Trip Jennings
Producer: Kyle Dickman and Andy Maser
Website: www.RiversInDemand.com
Boatwerks Team Season 2008
Duration: 8 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
This short film showcases the staff at Boatwerks doing what they love. Featured are many of Ontario’s finest classic rivers as well as some recently discovered gems. Follow the boys and girls of this Canadian kayak shop through the 2008 paddling season.
Director: Neal Ross-Ross
Producer: Jeff Strano
Website: www.boatwerks.net
Borealis
Duration: 63 min [Festival Version 13 min]
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
From Portage and Main in downtown Winnipeg to the family cottage near Parry Sound, Ontario, Frank Wolf and inexperienced paddler Taku Hokoyama tackle a 3,100-kilometre canoe trip through Canada's Boreal forest. The pair brave raging rapids and grueling portages in an effort to shed light on the issues facing this wilderness area.
Director and Producer: Frank Wolf
Website: www.gravywolf.blogspot.com
Cascade of Light
Duration: 24 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
This is a tale of one man's transformative journey from his home in the city to the coastal wilderness of the Arctic Ocean. Guided by a friend and moved by the remarkable spectacle of the Arctic, Martin Deslauriers experiences an insight of an unexpected kind. The film explores the joys of running wild rivers and the contradictions in our relationship with this wild land.
Director and Producer: Marten Berkman
Website: www.martenberkman.com
International Whitewater Hall of Fame 2008
Duration: 13 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
This video celebrates and honours 2008 IWHOF inductees who were nominated and voted in by 67 international affiliate organizations for their tremendous contribution to whitewater sports: Explorers Mick Hopkinson and Carl Luther; Champions and Pioneers Gilles Zok and Eric Jackson; and Advocates Klaus Lettmann and Kent Ford.
Director: Pat McDonnell
Producer: Pat McDonnell, Matthaw Urdan, Risa Shimoda
Website: www.iwhof.org
Journey to the Northern Sea/The Bonnet Plume River
Duration: 34 min [Festival Version 25 min]
Year Produced: 2007/2008
Year Released: 2008
Jan and Steve Moss and their two sons have been paddling Ontario rivers for years. In the summer of 2007, they realized a long-held dream to paddle a northern mountain river. The Bonnet Plume, located in Northern Yukon, is a Canadian Heritage River with a reputation as one of Canada's most spectacular wilderness rivers. With miles of challenging rapids and magnificent mountain scenery, this truly remote Arctic river did not disappoint.
Director and Producer: Steve Moss
Men and the Art of Whitewater Canoeing
Duration: 11 min
Year Produced: 2006
Year Released: 2006
A group from a Canadian men's club embark on a weekend retreat to do some whitewater canoeing and male bonding. They test their skills and strengths along the Magnetawan River with a few laughs and spills along the way.
Director and Producer: Chris Forde
Website: www.paddletotheamazone.com
Night of the Living Donkey
Duration: 39 min [Festival Version 5 min]
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
A toxic spill has polluted waterways and is transforming kayakers into blood-thirsty zombies. Paddlers and all citizens are warned to stay away from the water. Can professional kayaker HeeHaw Jones and a slew of other sponsored paddlers stay away from the water or does their fate lie in the clutches of the living dead?
Director: Spencer Cooke, Effort Inc.
Producer: Spencer Cooke, Effort Inc. and Joey Hall, Deadman Productions
Website: www.effort.tv
Powerplay: The Theft of B.C.'s Rivers
Duration: 19 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
This film educates the public about the B.C. government's agenda to hand the province’s watershed over to private companies for power production. The film provides a broad overview of this largely secretive program. While the government and industry insist that this is "green" power that we desperately need, the film’s experts tell a very different story—revealing one of the biggest resource heists in Canadian history.
Director and Producer: Damien Gillis
Website: www.saveourrivers.ca
Return to Nepal
Duration: 28 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
In October 2007, 13 Yukoners travelled to Nepal to paddle the Sun Kosi, Tamur, Marsyandi, Seti and Nadhi Kola. This is their story.
Director and Producer: Robert Daffe
Website: www.tatshenshiniyukon.com
Rivers at Risk: Koch Creek
Duration: 10 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
In this film the Save Our Rivers Society journeys to Koch Creek in B.C.'s spectacular Slocan Valley where they meet a biologist, a community organizer and a group of kayakers. These individuals have joined forces to form the Endangered Creeks Expedition to protect their beloved creek from a proposed power project.
Director and Producer: Damien Gillis
Website: www.saveourrivers.ca
Strathcona: A Slice Through Paradise
Duration: 10 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
This film documents a trip across Vancouver Island and showcases the spectacularly pristine and incredibly fragile state of the island. Beginning at sea level, the paddlers traverse 157 kilometres with an elevation change of two vertical kilometres from Campbell River on the east coast to Bedwell Sound on the west coast.
Director and Producer: Robin Thacker
Website: www.atlantiskayaks.com
The Eddy Feeling
Duration: 30 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2009
What does kayaking mean to different individuals, from the untrained beginner to the seasoned professional? A collection of kayaking filmmakers who share a common goal of telling fun, exciting and engaging stories through the lens of the camera offer a variety of perspectives on this question.
Director and Producer: Spencer Cooke, Effort Inc.
Website: www.effort.tv
The Endangered Creeks Expeditions
Duration: 22 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2009
The film documents a West Kootenay-based collective of whitewater paddlers raising concerns over the invasion of private hydroelectric projects throughout the province of British Columbia. The ECE attempts to reveal the true cost of "run-of-the-river" hydro development by exploring both threatened and developed waterways.
Director and Producer: Mikkel St.Jean-Duncan
Website: kayakhotdogs.blogspot.com
The Final Final
Duration: 21 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
The Final Final is a journey through North America's finest whitewater and scenery. Shot in high definition and filled with breathtaking time-lapse landscapes, this is a film that can be appreciated as much for its cinematography as for its world class kayaking.
Director and Producer: Ryan Moore
The Last Descent
Duration: 26 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2009
The Last Descent follows three friends travelling to California, India, Nepal and Africa to paddle some of the worlds best and most threatened rivers. The film looks to the history of dam building in the U.S. and what can be learned from it by developing nations.
Director and Producer: Katie Scott, Charlie Center, Scott Ligare
Website: www.thelastdescent.com
The Last Frontier
Duration: 18 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
In September of 2007, the Epicocity Project set out to run the first whitewater kayaking expedition ever to the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea. With no accurate maps, they moved from village to village on a system of trails searching for the underground source of the Pandi River.
Director: Trip Jennings
Producer: Kyle Dickman and Andy Maser
Website: www.RiversInDemand.com
Vladimir Tribute
Duration: 14 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
This film is a tribute to the eclectic and engaging founder of Noah Kayaks, Vladimir Vanha (1950-2006). Vanha designed the 10-foot-long Jeti Kayak back in
1983, paving the way for modern creek boats, planing hulls
and ergonomic outfitting.
Director and Producer: Kent Ford
Website: www.performancevideo.com
Yukoners on the Colorado
Duration: 29 min
Year Produced: 2004
Year Released: 2008
Sixteen Yukoners travelled to the Colorado River. This is their story.
Director and Producer: Robert Daffe
Website: www.tatshenshiniyukon.com
Mahi Madness
Duration: 12 min
Year Produced: 2004
Year Released: 2004
Cindy Heusser hooks in for an epic fight with her second sailfish—a 100-pound monster—off the coast of Hawaii.
Director and Producer: Steven C. Heusser
Website: www.screamnreelvideos.com
Moutcha Bay Kayak Fishing Derby
Duration: 4 min
Year Produced: 2008
Year Released: 2008
This film showcases kayak fishing on the West Coast of British Columbia at Moutcha Bay in Nootka Sound. Kayak anglers reel in 30-lbs Tyee Chinook Salmon amid the rich cultural history of the Nootka Nations and the remarkable wildlife of this wilderness area.
Director and Producer: Jim Davis
Website: mootchabay.com
2008 World Tour Films
Click here for a list of 2008 category winners, as well as a list of all the films shortlisted for the 2008 World Tour.
2007 World Tour Films
Click here for a list of 2007 category winners, as well as a list of all the films shortlisted for the 2007 World Tour.
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