BOFF Bovec Outdoor Film Festival

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 at the 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).

Bovec Outdoor Film Festival 2016: Report by BOFF on Vimeo

Background

The festival started out as a part of the Freeride Battle '08 competition at the Kanin ski resort, where an 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 moved to the Cultural House Bovec and set up a somewhat more ambitious programme.

That same year, the first independent and internationally minded BOFF was held in December. Lasting 3 days and presenting 26 films, the festival established its main categories and regular accompanying programme features. Since 2011, the festival takes place at the Stergulc House, a mansion in the centre of Bovec, which also holds a collection from the Tolmin Museum.

Film programme

The concept of "outdoor film" gives the festival lots of leeway in terms of film formats, which range from documentaries and short films to commercials, feature fiction films and combinations of any of these. The topics vary greatly as well, yet, the adventure sports film genre tends to be its distinctive focus.

Awards and categories

The 3 main categories since 2009 are nature and ecology; sport and action (feature films); and sport and action (short films). There is often also a non-competitive category for films of a promotional nature, coupled with occasional retrospectives and archival runs. The awarded films are chosen both by an international jury as well as by the audience.

Some of the awarded films until now have been New Zealand South Island Circumnavigation (Justine Curgenven, 2008), Mount St. Elias (Gerald Salmina, 2009), Salt (Murray Fredericks, 2009), Carstenz – Siedma hora (Pavol Barabaš, 2008), To the Rainbow (Dave and Lynwen Brown, 2010), Life Cycles (Derek Frankowski and 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.

BOFF 2012 Trailer by BOFF on Vimeo

Accompanying programme

The festival's accompanying programme usually comprises photography exhibitions (some of the exhibited photographers have been 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 sets up various special events such as 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.

Taking place on the ski slopes of Kanin, the school of freeride skiing was featured as side programme to the BOFF Bovec Outdoor Film Festival in 2011

Snow sculpture festival

Creating snow sculptures has been a part of BOFF almost since the beginning, and in 2010, this activity has grown into an independent International Festival of Snow Sculptures. It takes place at the same time as the festival, lasts for 3 days and boasts an international turnout.

External links

BOFF website

Gallery

Taking place on the ski slopes of Kanin, the school of freeride skiing was featured as side programme to the BOFF Bovec Outdoor Film Festival in 2011

A discussion with Andreas Jaritz, author of the film The Old, the Young and the Sea, taking place at BOFF Bovec Outdoor Film Festival 2013

BOFF Bovec Outdoor Film Festival always features a varied accompanying programme with music concerts. Here is Bakalina playing at Stergulc house in 2013.