Film Fund

The 5Point Film Fund supports filmmakers challenging the storytelling status quo through monetary grants. We connect artists and filmmakers with opportunities to showcase their work to a network of other creatives, the outdoor industry, and beyond. Over the years, the 5Point Film Fund has made many projects possible for films that have gone on to win awards and tour the world. Congratulatons to this year’s recipients!

THIS IS BETH

DIRECTOR Jen Randall PRODUCERS Sarah Steele and Noam Argov Have you ever woken up one morning and decided to share a picture of your cellulite and untoned stomach with 50,000+ people on social media? Ya, us neither, but legendary climber Beth Rodden started to do this weekly. “This is Beth” is an intimate character-piece celebrating a vulnerable side of professional climber Beth Rodden: from a young, send-at-all-costs athlete, to a mother determined to ‘normalize normal’ when it comes to our bodies and happiness. Weaving Beth’s new, playful approach to climbing on the boulders of Yosemite with sequences of daily life, archive and interview, this short film explores Beth’s remarkable journey towards finding self contentment and changing the outlook on body image in the climbing community.

GODSPEED, LOS POLACOS!

DIRECTOR Sonia Szczesna PRODUCER Adam Nawrot Five university students slip through the Iron Curtain and find themselves in Soviet crosshairs after becoming the first people to navigate the world’s deepest canyon and using their achievement as a platform to fight for democracy in the Eastern Bloc. This tells the story of these students on the edge of adulthood who skillfully pull the strings of the Soviet system, and find themselves on a kayaking expedition in the Americas with a six-wheeled military truck, homemade equipment, and little to no whitewater skills. The story follows their epic two-year journey that culminates with the record-breaking first descent of the world’s deepest canyon and a life threatening dash for political asylum in the United States after using their newfound fame to fight for democracy in the Eastern Bloc.

IRAKLI’S LANTERN

DIRECTOR Ben Page The film explores the themes of elected isolation in a wild landscape. Page stumbled on the story of 78-year-old Irakli Khvedaguridize of Tusheti, Georgia in a New York Times article which described a mountain region where the entire population migrates each winter while Khvedaguridize, the regional doctor, chooses to stay behind. Page was also eager to capture on camera the scenery of the Caucasus mountains which are dotted with small villages and medieval stone watchtowers. Page felt Irakli’s story, while being highly individual, has also many parallels to modern life. “The motivations he has to stay behind in his village when all others have left, center around the sense of belonging and a connection to a physical place — his village, the surrounding mountains are his life, and his stories are etched into the stone buildings and the hillsides,” said Page, describing the narrative. “The mental resolve it must take to go against the norm to pursue his idea of a ‘good’ life is striking, and, although an extreme example, Irakli teaches us that it is a worthwhile pursuit to slow down, to make connections in our immediate surroundings, and to discover a place of belonging. As much as home is found in relationships, it is also found in a connection to a physical place.”