The Snow Walker
(Canada, 2003, 109’)
Director: Charles Martin Smith
Producers: Robert Merilees, William Vince
After encountering a group of Inuit while travelling in the Canadian North, bush pilot Charlie Halliday finds himself in the company of Kanaalaq, a young girl in desperate need of a hospital. When Charlie’s engine explodes and the two are left in the middle of the Arctic alone, they must learn to overcome language barriers and survive the extreme elements together. Shot in British Columbia, Manitoba and Nunavut, this epic story of love, survival and redemption is based on the book Walk Well My Brother, by Farley Mowatt.

4 pm Program ($8)
The Story of the Weeping Camel
(Germany, 2004, 87’)
Directors: Byambasuren Davaa, Luigi Falorni
Producer: Tobias N. Siebert
Set amid the sweeping expanses of the Gobi Desert, this film follows the adventures of a family of camel herders who face a crisis when one mother camel rejects her newborn, following a particularly difficult delivery. Invoking an ancient ritual, the family sends two of its young boys to the capital city to enlist the aid of a musician who they believe will coax the mother camel into nursing her baby. Apart from reuniting mother and child, the ritual also has the miraculous side effect of making the mother camel weep.

Caravan
(Spain, 2003, 85’) NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Director: Gerardo Olivares
Producer: Javier Linares
Rabdoulah and Pemba are 10-year-old boys who live in two of the most inhospitable regions on the planet: the Teneré Desert and the Himalayas. Though separated by thousands of miles, they have something in common. For the first time, they are going to accompany their families — who for generations have worked in the salt trade — on a long and dangerous journey. Rabdoulah will cross Niger’s Teneré Desert with a caravan of forty camels to the Bilma salt mines, and Pemba will travel across the Himalayas in Nepal to the Dabrie salt pans.

8 pm Program ($8)
(winter)time
(Canada, 2001, 5’)
Director/Producer: Dan Sokolowski*
A film on northern joie de vivre, (winter)time is an animated short about the joys of winter set to a jazz arrangement of Gershwin’s Summertime by Peter Togni. This is a cool Canadian version of a hot American classic.

Samsara
(Germany, 2001, 138’)
Director: Pan Nalin
Producers: Karl Baumgartner, Christoph Friedel
What is more important: satisfying one thousand desires or conquering just one? A spiritual love story set in the majestic landscape of Ladakh, in the Himalayas, Samsara is a quest - one man’s struggle to find spiritual enlightenment. Rated 18A: sexual content.

Sunday, October 31

1 pm Program ($8)
Sahara - The Journey West: Part II
(Ireland, 2002, 54’) NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Director/Producer: John Murray
Writer and climber Dermot Somers travels by camel across the Sahara with one of the very last remaining Tuareg caravans still trading in the desert. Having started at the remote oasis of Bilma, the caravan is carrying a precious metal that could once be traded for its own weight in gold: salt. This film provides a remarkable view of life in the greatest desert on Earth and of an ancient culture on the verge of extinction.

Dolpo - Children of the Mountains
(France, 2002, 50’) WORLD PREMIERE
Directors: Sylvie Davidson, Pierre Combroux
Producer: Eric Bacos
Tenzin Norbu is a painter who comes from the Dolpo, an ancient and hidden Himalayan kingdom discovered by Westerners only in the ’60s and still cloaked in mystery. From his studio in Kathmandu, the artist brings viewers into this fascinating world. The film unfolds like a fairytale, presenting characters whose stories are moving and remarkable.

4 pm Program ($8)
Being Caribou
(Canada, 2004, 72’)
Directors: Leanne Allison*, Diana Wilson
Producer: Tracey Friesen
Wildlife biologist Karsten Heuer and emerging filmmaker Leanne Allison set out from the remote village of Old Crow in the Yukon to follow the annual migration of the Porcupine caribou herd. The young couple’s plan is to accompany the 123,000 caribou from their wintering range in central Yukon to the spring calving grounds on Alaska’s coastal plain, and back again - on foot! It is a 1500-kilometre journey across three mountain ranges, through whiteout blizzards and among aggressive predators. This film is a stunning narrative that reveals the threat posed by proposed American oil and gas drilling to these northern creatures. Winner of the AGF People’s Choice Award at the 2004 Calgary International Film Festival, and the Federal Express Award for Most Popular Canadian Film at the 2004 Vancouver International Film Festival.

Counting Sheep
(USA, 2004, 59’) CANADIAN PREMIERE
Director/Producer: Frank Green*
What happens when a protected predator eats an endangered species? High in California’s Sierra Nevada, the last few native bighorn sheep are fighting for recovery. Mountain lions, protected by state law, threaten their survival. Two remarkable men stand between the bighorn and extinction. An oboe-playing mountain man turned consummate scientist has an unlikely ally: a mountain lion tracker of skill and instinct - a modern-day frontiersman.

8 pm Program ($8)
Africa Trek
(France, 2003, 98’)
Directors: Florence Tran, Sonia and Alexandre Poussin
Producer: Diane Riethof
In early January of 2001, Alexandre and Sonia Poussin began their attempt to walk the length of the African continent, from the Cape of Good Hope, in South Africa, to the Sea of Galilee - more than 10,000 kilometres connecting the two extremities of the Great Rift Valley. This film chronicles their unforgettable three-year journey.

Daughters of Everest
(USA, 2004, 55’) CANADIAN PREMIERE
Directors/Producers: Sapana Sakya*, Ramyata Limbu
In 2000, the first-ever expedition of Sherpa women to climb Everest was organized. This documentary gives a close-up account of the expedition. Although the Sherpa people are legendary for their unmatched skill in mountaineering, Sherpa women are discouraged from climbing Everest, relegated instead to support roles in the climbing industry of Nepal. Told from a woman’s perspective rarely seen on Everest - or off - this film is both a dramatic, inspiring Everest story and an absorbing portrait of the Sherpa community.