BOFF Bovec Outdoor Film Festival

Contact

BOFF Bovec Outdoor Film Festival

Trg golobarskih žrtev 22/23, SI-5230 Bovec

http://www.boff.si/

info@boff.si

Organised bySports Association Drča

Frequencyannual

Festival dates27.12.2015-30.12.2015

The BOFF Bovec Outdoor Film Festival has been going on since 2008, when it emerged out of a skiing and snowboarding competition. As the name implies, the festival presents films that deal with outdoor sports (such as mountaineering, kayaking, mountain biking, surfing and snowboarding) and also with various takes on the wider issues of nature and ecology. It takes place in the Alpine town of Bovec each end of December.

The festival, organised by the sports association Drča in collaboration with the Municipality of Bovec, collaborates with the similarly oriented Koroška Outdoor Film Festival and usually also screens its films at different events and venues around Slovenia (like the Soča Outdoor Festival and the Kinodvor Cinema).

BOFF 2012 Trailer by BOFF on Vimeo

Background

The festival started out as a part of the Freeride Battle ’08 competition at the Kanin ski resort, where one evening was dedicated to a presentation of a handful of films by Slovene authors. The next edition of the festival (which happened only a few months after the first one) still retained its ties with the Freeride Battle, but has moved to the Cultural house Bovec and has set up a somewhat more ambitious programme.

That same year, the first independent BOFF was held in December. It lasted for three days, presented 26 films and established its main categories and its regular accompanying programme features. Since 2011, the festival is taking place at the Stergulc house, a mansion in the centre of Bovec that also holds a collection from the Tolmin Museum.

Film programme

The concept of outdoor film give the festival lots of leeway in terms of film formats, which range from documentaries and short films to commercials, feature fiction films and some combinations of any of these. The topics also vary greatly, yet the so called adventure sports films tend to be its distinctive focus.

Awards and categories

The three main categories since 2009 are nature and ecology; sport and action (features films); and sport and action (short films). There is often also the non-competitive category for films of a promotional nature, coupled with occasional retrospectives and archival pieces. The awarded films are chosen both by an international jury as well as by the audience.

Some of the films awarded films until now were New Zealand South Island Circumnavigation (Justine Curgenven, 2008), Mount St. Elias (Gerald Salmina, 2009), Salt (Murray Fredericks, 2009), Carstenz – Siedma hora, To the Rainbow (Dave in Lynwen Brown, 2010), Life Cycles (Derek Frankowski in Ryan Gibb, 2010), Grilomentary (Domen Smerdel, 2011), FinnSurf (Aleksij Raij, 2011), The Water Tower (Pete McBride, 2013), The Sensei (Josh Lowell, 2013), Suri (Pavol Barabaš, 2015), etc.

Accompanying programme

The side programme usually consists of a photography exhibition (some of the exhibited photographers were Peter Fettich, Branko Bradaškja, [Darko Cuder] and Rožle Bregar), lectures by different adventurers like the pilot Matevž Lenarčič, talks with film creators, a book fair and music concerts.

The festival also often sets up events like a skiing and snowboarding rail contest, a lecture on avalanche safety, a round table on regulations concerning mountain biking and even a stop-motion workshop.

Snow sculptures festival

Creating snow sculptures has been a part of BOFF almost since the start and in 2010, it became an independent Festival of Snow Sculptures. It is taking place at the same time as the festival, lasts for the whole three days and boasts an international turnout.

External links

• BOFF website

See also

• International Mountain Film Festival Domžale
• Kinodvor Cinema
• Tolmin Museum