Calm Beneath Castles

The Collective

December 2019 •English

Adventuring to undiscovered peaks together, plotting midnight-raids on inner-city handrails, lapping your home run until that last ray of sunshine disappears behind a distant ridge - Skiing is Collective. Some call it a tribe mentality, others call it a shared sense of purpose. This film is our definition, written by a diverse team, each with their own ideas, their own forms of expression. "The Collective" is more than a sum of its parts. No matter who you are or where you come from - it feels good to be part of something special.

Black Ice

January 1980 •English

Black Ice is a short film about a group of sailing enthusiasts who have adapted the principles of the sport to winter conditions. The sight of a fragile craft whisking across a frozen lake at one hundred km/h, leaving a shower of powdered ice in its wake, is breathtaking. Iceboat racing is exciting; a sport like no other in the world.

Nanook of the North

June 1922 •English

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Blindsight

September 2006 •English

Six blind Tibetan teenagers climb the Lhakpa-Ri peak of Mount Everest, led by seven-summit blind mountain-climber Erik Weihenmayer.

March of the Penguins

January 2005 •French

Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. This amazing, true-life tale is touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader... to adventure!!

Snow Animals

December 2019 •English

Liz Bonnin introduces a cast of charismatic animals to reveal the remarkable strategies they use to survive, and even thrive, through the winter.

Draw

August 2006 •English

More

September 2006 •English

Once again Absinthe Films raises the bar to bring you 'More'. This title marks the beginning of a new era for Absinthe Films as they have broadened their scope to include and properly represent urban riding while still keeping the overall blend fresh and un-repetitive.

A Breath Of Summer

June 2018 •English

Feel the rush of the breathtakingly beautiful National Parks of California with one deep breath of the summer air.

Rigopiano: voci dal gelo

January 2018 •Italian

Mountain in Shadow

November 2012 •Spanish

A poetic view into the relationship of immensity between man and landscape. We contemplate, from the distance, the activity of the skiers on the snowy mountain. The pictorial image and the dark and dreamlike atmosphere transforms the space into something unreal, imprecise, converting it also in a spectral presence.

Ski Peru!

December 1979 •English

Ski Peru is the story of two skiers’ dream of descending the untamed slopes of Huascaran, although maybe 'Ski Peru and die' would be a more appropriate title given the tragic climax to Peter Chrzanowski’s Peruvian odyssey. Filmed long before today’s adrenaline charged ski videos on heavy 16mm movie cameras there is no heavy rock soundtrack, no helicopters, no roboskiers mainlining powder at Mach 5.0. It is a slow moving film that explores man’s relationship with the mountain and what it is to ski into the unknown.

Life In The Snow

December 2016 •English

In a seasonal special, Gordon Buchanan meets the animals who live in nature's winter wonderlands. He reveals their survival secrets, from the polar bear mother who gives her cubs the best possible start in life to the owl that finds food hidden beneath a blanket of snow, plus the plucky penguins that huddle together to keep warm. Gordon also unwraps the lives of our favourite Christmas characters - those wonderful reindeer and our very own robin redbreast!

One Second in Montreal

September 1969 •English

A silent succession of black-and-white photographs of the city of Montreal.

Fullsterkur

August 2018 •English

FULLSTERKUR is the third documentary in a collection of films produced by Rogue Fitness, exploring strength culture around the world, connected specifically by the ancient tradition of stone lifting. Nestled at the doorstep of the Arctic Circle, the country of Iceland is uniquely acquainted with the relationship between strength and survival. For hundreds of years, men and women were challenged to overcome harsh weather and endless winter nights by developing their own distinct physical and mental fortitude—passed down from the age of the Vikings, and iconically represented by the lifting of heavy stones. Today, on an island with a population of just over 300,000, a disproportionate number of the world’s greatest strength athletes still call Iceland home.

The Second Game

February 2014 •Romanian

A deceptively simple set-up: the director and his father watch a 1988 football match which the father refereed, their commentary accompanying the original television images in real time. A Bucharest derby between the country’s leading teams, Dinamo and Steaua, taking place in heavy snow, one year before the revolution that toppled Ceaușescu.

White Death

October 2014 •Spanish

Impressionist portrait of a landscape forged by tragedy. A ghostly wanderer among the vestiges of a story where 44 young soldiers and a sergeant were pushed to their deaths

Picture of Light

June 1994 •English

A documentary of an expedition to Churchill, Manitoba to film the Northern Lights.

Skiing Everest

January 2009 •English

A small, elite fraternity of high-altitude skiers climb the highest peaks in the world in pure Alpine style, carrying their skis and declining to use supplemental oxygen. At the top of the world, high in the Death Zone, they lock into their skis and challenge the most dangerous slopes in the world—under weather conditions that are as perilous as the thin air, hidden crevasses and 10,000 ft. sheer faces that drop into Nepal and Tibet far below.

La Guerre des tuques... au fil du temps

October 2009 •French