NEWS: Kendal Mountain Festival 2018: Report

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 UKC/UKH News 19 Nov 2018
Extreme Basecamp scenesThe Kendal Mountain Festival has finished for another year. Its trademark blend of films, talks, events, stalls and banter proved a big hit, with thousands of visitors over the weekend

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 Offwidth 19 Nov 2018
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

As  good as its ever been and the most crowded II'd seen it.

There is one major area they do need to sort out: the new  food outlets in the brewery yard. The outside caterers were much lower quality, too samey and a real pain at times (starting late, finishing early and  breaking down). Goodness knows why they dumped the excellent quality, better time flexibility  and variety  from the local providers. Apparently this is totally the fault of the hosts,  The Brewery Arts centre, and not the festival organisers. That they wouldn't support the local community given the amazing quality and past success is worrying. Rins was an especially heavy loss for me... mass film viewings were a joy with such caffeine.

https://rinscoffee.com

 Tyler 19 Nov 2018
In reply to Offwidth:

I was disappointed with the films available via the film pass, there was only one that I would recommend someone going out of their way to watch (the dragons back race) which unfathomably was only shown twice all weekend (incidentally, despite this, the voting website showed this as having won the people's choice award by a huge amount but this article says otherwise).

Despite trying to watch as many climbing and mountaineering films as possible I probably watched more paddling films than anything else (although at least two of these were better than any of the climbing films I saw).

I thought Bloodmoon was the best of a bad bunch of climbing/mountaineering films.

The program of free talks looked really good on the Saturday.

EDIT: I forgot, the Dave McLeod film 24/8 is really good but I'd seen that before

EDIT 2: I guess we see so many quality free films these days the bar is now very high. Very good films are only considered 'meh', possibly why I enjoyed some of the non-climbing ones as I have little to compare them with.

Post edited at 16:12
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 djwilse 19 Nov 2018
In reply to Offwidth:

Agree  - If it was the Brewery that made that call then it is in some ways even worse - Should be supporting local providers.

I went to the 'Best of' on Sunday evening and was slightly underwhelmed. The most painful film was the winner for best sound - Paradise Peak - maybe I am completely uncultured but it was slightly like a Monty Python sketch - a group of musicians carrying voila, trombones etc up a via ferrata for 30mins!

The paddle sports session was excellent but really badly attended given the top names there.

Basecamp has outgrown its space, too crowded.

Mickol 19 Nov 2018
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

Agree about the catering. It was great the previous years to come out of the hostel and grab a proper coffee and a sausage sarnie from the local stalls. Was underwhelmed by the food and ended up eating in town most days

 gav 19 Nov 2018
In reply to Tyler:

> I was disappointed with the films available via the film pass, there was only one that I would recommend someone going out of their way to watch (the dragons back race) which unfathomably was only shown twice all weekend (incidentally, despite this, the voting website showed this as having won the people's choice award by a huge amount but this article says otherwise).

Now I'm even more confused: the article says

> The People's Choice Award, which was voted for by audiences attending this year's festival, went to National Geographic's Free Solo

But later lists

> People's Choice Underdog

... so pick whichever of the 3 you fancy, I guess?

 Tyler 19 Nov 2018
In reply to gav:

If you went to the people's vote page (https://www.myvote.io/contest/5167760682254336 - now a dead link) last night after voting had closed it showed all the films ranked. The ranking used total number of votes rather than rating out of 5 but the Dragon back race film was comfortably ahead in both with over 1000 votes and 4.9+ rating. Regardless it was a good film so hopefully will resurface elsewhere (possibly on iPlayer on S4C)

In reply to gav:

Sorry, that was all meant to have been edited before we published - the danger of two people working on the same report I guess. We were sent wrong info in the original press release about the film results (we didn't attend the film awards in person). As far as I know the People's Choice is Underdog.    

 cragrat2017 19 Nov 2018
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

From a climbing/mountaineering perspective I had a great weekend of films and lectures - missed some of the winners because of timing. I agree with comments about food and would add - in a constructive way;

 The trailer was too long to watch before every session over three days, and at least in the Theatre, way too loud. Sound quality generally wasn't good with dialogue difficult to follow at times. Film makers - put the English subtitles at the top of the screen - my neck's still stiff from trying to see only parts of them in the Studio - not a good venue for this type of film. The Vats Bar copes badly with the current popularity of the festival so closing the downstairs bar early is a mistake. 

In reply to Mickol:

Agree about the food, I expected a breakfast bar of some sort. Ended up going to Booth's Supermarket cafe for a full English on Saturday - quality!. On Sunday I partook of the Mountain Rescue's pop up cafe outside the church next to the Brewery - bacon roll for a donation. Well done MR.

 Wainers44 19 Nov 2018
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

I thought it was a great weekend. We only get to Kendal on this weekend each year and the town is a nice place to visit.

 

Totally agree about the lack of choice with the food, hopefully a lesson for the organisers for next year. With so many hungry people there its such a great opportunity for local providers?

We thought the film collections were pretty good. No, we didn't find all the films exactly to our taste (eg we are not big dry tooling fans), but that's the point isn't it? Seeing a bit of variety away from the topics you usually chose? The only comment is that we did think there were more US based/made films than last year?

If the Riding the Dragon Film didn't win the peoples vote then the voting is even more obscure than Government Elections! It was a clear winner!!

In reply to Wainers44:

From what I have heard, the Brewery Arts Centre have contracted out all their onsite catering for the year and this contract precludes allowing independent caterers on site , hence the absence this year of Rinaldo’ coffee etc. This inevitably meant people going off site . However with so many great local cafe’s etc, in Kendal maybe no bad thing if it spread the ‘mountain pound’ across more local businesses which was good for the town. 

 

In reply to Offwidth:

Completely agree re the disappointing new food outlets. Missed Rinaldo's excellent coffee and also the excellent locally produced burgers available in previous years (can't remember the name of the farm). Gave the new outlets a miss and went elsewhere in town

In reply to djwilse:

> I went to the 'Best of' on Sunday evening and was slightly underwhelmed. The most painful film was the winner for best sound - Paradise Peak - maybe I am completely uncultured but it was slightly like a Monty Python sketch - a group of musicians carrying voila, trombones etc up a via ferrata for 30mins!

Really it was only 30 mins long................ seemed a lot longer

 

 shantaram 20 Nov 2018
In reply to Glenn Sutcliffe:

Ditto. It was painfully long and self indulgent. 5 minutes would have been enough. My least favourite film of the weekend. 

 Niall Grimes 20 Nov 2018

I kinda thought it was a trip, but like most of the audience, sighed every time pitches 4,5 and 6 hapened.

But the one after, about Tamara Lunger and Simone More, was just the best thing ever.

 

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 Dark-Cloud 20 Nov 2018
In reply to Niall Grimes:

If you were at the Town Hall you may well have heard more than a sigh from me, it was painful to watch, musically it was good but an utterly pointless otherwise.

Agree about the Simone Moro one, brilliant film.

I have to admit i don't understand how the "best of" can have 8 films showing but only 4 of them prizewinners, i felt a bit cheated really, it wasn't worth £12 for sure.

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Northern Star 20 Nov 2018
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

I think the mass clapping at the end of Paradise Peak was a clapping of relief that it was finally over!

 Gus 20 Nov 2018
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

Big up to everyone who came and danced like maniacs to some house and techno tunes at Ruskins on Saturday night! Great scenes!!

 Jon Stewart 20 Nov 2018
In reply to Niall Grimes:

> I kinda thought it was a trip, but like most of the audience, sighed every time pitches 4,5 and 6 hapened.

I thought the context was the problem, rather than the film. The first two tunes were absolutely brilliant, but then the music got more boring and the dragging a cello up a via ferrata looked more like a complete a waste of energy. In the context of music videos, it would have worked quite well, but if you show it to a load of people expecting 'awesome' footage of 'rad' action in 'sick' locations, it ain't going to go down well.

> But the one after, about Tamara Lunger and Simone More, was just the best thing ever.

One of my favourites too.

'Zabardast' had the combination of the most spectacular location and footage with following intimately the mental lives of the most boring, self-congratulating yo-sick-rad-extreme dudes you could ever wish not to meet. One guy got scared a couple of times and then got his mojo back on the last day of the trip and did something rad - presenting this with another crescendo of the continuous over-dramatic, gushing orchestral music as though it was a profound story personal redemption really didn't do it for me. And if you're going to make a film of a diary, I'd advise choosing the diary of someone whose use of language isn't unremittingly banal and completely devoid of any poetry or meaning. So while the footage was nice, I was almost wishing for the return of the hillwalking cello. At least those guys had the good grace to keep their mouths shut.

Post edited at 18:12
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 shantaram 20 Nov 2018
In reply to Niall Grimes:

Hey Niall, thanks to you and your DJ buddies for providing an awesome Friday night of tunes at Ruskins. That was the highlight of my festival weekend! Disco of the finest quality. 

 djwilse 21 Nov 2018
In reply to Glenn Sutcliffe:

I took that time from the listing, I agree it seemed like a lot longer!!

I am glad I am not alone in my views.

 Niall Grimes 21 Nov 2018
In reply to shantaram:

Heyyyyy Shantaram, how mega. Glad you enjoyed, will pass the message on x

 Offwidth 22 Nov 2018
In reply to UKC/UKH News:

I forgot to metion the 45 minute festival cut of Seaside wasn't selected. This was a big disappointment to me... I think Kendal should be supporting such well made grass roots films about ordinary punters if they can. To me it was better than anything I saw about climbing except Free Solo and much better than the average showing. All the problems I've had with longer films at Kendal have been with euro big production efforts or puff pieces.

If anyone missed it it's viewable here:

http://tv.thebmc.co.uk/videos/the-seaside/

Chatting to Cheque last night its good to hear some other festivals have selected his film.

Maybe its back to discussions I had before: that we need a fringe festival for good but less commerical oriented stuff that misses the Kendal cut and some more stuff like the fun Marc C organised.

In reply to Offwidth:

Agree - a fringe festival for more grass roots stuff would really compliment the main festival.

 Tyler 22 Nov 2018
In reply to Offwidth:

I'm not really sure why Seaside would be considered fringe at a UK mountain film festival. I'd say most films I saw were more fringe.

 SteveD 22 Nov 2018

I actually enjoyed Paradise Peak

The Tamara/Simone film was gorgeous, absolutely loved the banter and closeness of them, I also loved This Mountain Life.  Women in Adventure was cool too especially the presentation by the Wonderful Wild Women.

Agree with others about Zabardast, just found it banal and annoying.

Didn't see much else because the sun was shining so I went for a walk instead.

Steve

 


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