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STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK "FALL LINE" PHOTOS COURTESY OF BOB CARMICHAEL A trailer depicting the history of the legendary Wasatch climbers and the Academy Award-nominated “Fall Line” will be among the films shown at the 8th Annual Homegrown Film Festival. The festival will be held twice: at 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30, at The Argyros in Ketchum. Tickets are $12 for the 4 p.m. showing and $15 for the 7:30 p.m. showing, available online at https://www.homegrownfilms.org.
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Greg Lowe rigs a gravity sky dolly to film skiing in a tight, steep couloir on Grand Teton.
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Tickets purchased at the door are $15 for the 4 p.m. show and $20 for the 7:30 p.m. show. “Homegrown is our unique opportunity to come together, to cultivate excitement about what we can, have, and will create,” said Tina Cole. “Homegrown is also a sell-out great party and celebration to bring in and kick off this World Cup winter while supporting the Sawtooth Avalanche Center one hundred percent.” The Homegrown Film Festival was founded to showcase films that showcase Sun Valley-area filmmakers and athletes on mountain, river, climbing and cycling adventures around the world. This year’s will feature Bob Carmichael’s “Fall Line,” a 1981 Academy Award-nominated documentary short that was the first film to introduce extreme skiing to the American public. The film chronicles a ski descent of the infamously steep east face of Grand Teton.
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Greg Lowe affixes the early version of a POV (point of view0 camera to a skier for the film “Fall line.”
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It prompted Greg Lowe, who co-directed and filmed “Fall Line,” to create the gravity sky dolly and the 16 mm POV leg camera to film the descents in steep 50-degree and narrow 50-foot wide couloirs. The filming from Tyrolean rope lines were used for shots now much more easily accessed by drones. A trailer from “Alpenbock,” a Salt Lake Climbers Alliance film-in-progress, delves into the history of climbers in Utah’s Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons. The film, due to be released in 2026, also looks at the enduring spirit of the Alpenbock Club amidst contemporary preservation challenges. All of the proceeds go to the Sawtooth Avalanche Center, thanks to the support of the Bex Wilkinson and Marshall Frankel Foundation. Friends of the Sawtooth Avalanche Center and the forecasters will sell raffle tickets for a trip with Sun Valley Heli Guides and gear from sponsors. And Homegrown artist Jack Weekes will also have on hand his latest serigraph—that of Old Hyndman in the nearby Pioneer Mountains—to benefit the avalanche center. Fifty original serigraphs will be sold for $100 each.
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Jack Weekes created this year’s Homegrown Film festival depicting Old Hyndman in the Pioneer Mountains. COURTESY: Jack Weekes
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“With the Forest Service making cutbacks exacerbated by wildfires, it is more important than ever to support and help our Sawtooth Avalanche Center maintain its operations and staffing,” said Cole. “This autumn the SAC crew kept busy repairing weather stations melted and damaged by multiple wildfires.” The Friends of the Sawtooth Avalanche Center raises half of the center’s operating budget, which keeps four staff in the field covering a forecast area spanning 2 million acres in the Sawtooth, Smoky, Soldier and Wood River Valley mountains, as well as Galena and Banner summits. The Avalanche Center includes Spanish-speaking materials on its website, along with Spanish-speaking videos, presentations and avalanche warnings. Sign up for free daily avalanche forecasts at https://www.sawtoothavalanche.com/subscribe-avalanche-forecast/.
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