There’s no doubt that many of us are drawn towards outdoor adventure, both in the wilds and from the comfort of our local theatres. It’s become an annual rite for locals to purchase their tickets well before Christmas to guarantee a seat at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Cranbrook in early January. Now the local festival organizers are bringing the epic, feature length film, On the Trail of Genghis Khan, to the big screen at McKim Theatre in Kimberley. The film will be screened at 7pm on Saturday February 18th – running time is 180 minutes.
Having won the coveted Peoples’ Choice Award at the week-long Banff Mountain Film Fest last fall along with a bucket-full of top awards at festivals in Austria, Czech Republic and Bulgaria, the film On the Trail of Genghis Khan comes highly recommended.
“Every-one we’ve spoken to who saw the film at the festival in Banff talks about it in awe” said Pegg Davidson, long time chair of the local festival organizing committee.”We could have shown one segment of the film at the Cranbrook festival but people told us that they’d like to see the whole film so we arranged to screen it at McKim in February.”
On the Trail of Genghis Khan chronicles young Australian adventurer Tim Cope’s, journey of a lifetime, as he travels 10,000kms alone on horseback across the Eurasian steppe through Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Hungary.
From the former Mongol capital Karakorum to the Danube, Tim retraced the path of the first nomads and followed the route taken by legendary Genghis Khan as he forged his great empire. Over three and a half gruelling years, and guided by an old Kazakh wisdom – “to understand the wolf, you must put on the skin of a wolf and look through its eyes” – Tim lived just as the ancient nomads did.
When he set out with his fearless dog Tigon as a companion there was no certainty – no backup from a camera crew, no escape route – and he could barely ride a horse. Ahead lay the plateaux with their native wolves, the glaciated Altai Mountains, minus fifty degree temperatures on the ‘starving steppe’, scorching heat in the Kazakh desert, violent clashes between sedentary and nomadic societies and the deep forests and treacherous peals of the Carpathians. He would also suffer the greatest tragedy of his life. To cope he would have to draw on everything he learnt from the nomads.
“With the film showing a few days after Valentine’s Day we’re thinking some people might receive a ticket to the film instead of the usual chocolates on the 14th” said Davidson. “Cuddling up for three hours on a February evening to enjoy an amazing film sounds like a pretty good Valentine’s treat to me.”
Tickets for the film are $12 in advance and can be purchased in Kimberley at Blackbear Books & Video and Snowdrift Cafe in Kimberley and in Cranbrook at High Country Sports. If there are any left tickets will available at the door for $15. Doors open at 6pm with beer and wine on sale before the film.
Proceeds from the film will go towards Wildsight’s local environmental education projects. A link to trailer and more information on the film is available at www.wildsight.ca/onthetrail or by contacting Wildsight at kimcran@wildsight.ca or 250 427-2535.
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For more information please contact Helen Sander at Wildsight Kimberley/Cranbrook at
250 427-2535 or helen@wildsight.ca or Pegg Davidson at 250 427-7178
See http://www.timcopejourneys.com/ for information on Tim Cope and On the Trail of Genghis Khan.