Video + Interview: Snowboarder Xavier de Le Rue's This Is My Winter—Full Movie

THIS IS MY WINTER (full movie english) from TimeLine Film on Vimeo.

What makes French snowboarder Xavier de Le Rue tick? The big-mountain feats he pulls off are nothing short of incredible as he mixes skills from different sports. The new film This Is My Winter, now available in full on Vimeo, looks at Xavier, his friends, and their film crew as they took on Europe's terrible snow conditions last season. You'll see some of the most jaw-dropping snowboarding captured on film and get a candid look this intrepid, skillful rider. The movie is a must-watch and was one of our favorite films at the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

We asked Xavier to answer a few questions about his daring, progressive snowboarding style and his plans for the next winter season. —Mary Anne Potts

Adventure: How do you decide which lines to ride?
Xavier de Le Rue: If a line fits my riding style, which means if it is aesthetic, can be ridden fast, has some escape options, and possibly some features to hit on the way, and a clean outrun, then it has every chance to catch my eye.

A: What do you say to people think you too many risks in your riding?
Xavier: If I judge a line as being dangerous, I won't consider riding it. If I judge a line interesting and difficult, I give it some thought to see what are the consequences if I do a mistake.

In any case, if I feel the snow layer is tricky I back off. I'm concerned about the stuff I don't control, such as stability of the snow, hidden crevasses, etc. I don't argue with people judging my riding as risky—I'm not them and they are not me. Every one can say what they want. I put enough thought to my riding to avoid considering random people opinions. I'm scared enough when I ride to not listen to others being scared for me. I appreciate their concern though. I get these comments every now and then.

Banff Radical Reels: Feel the Hill Filmmakers Discuss Longboarding

By National Geographic Digital Media's Amy Bucci

As the opening credits roll for Feel the Hill, the audience is shown someone sawing a kitchen cutting board apart and gluing the pieces onto everyday gardening gloves. We later learn these special gloves are essential gear for a unique extreme sport called longboarding.

This film, a People's Choice finalist in the Banff Mountain Film Festival's Radical Reels category, was made by 19-year-olds Jeremy Comte and Alexandre Auray. What's amazing is that Jeremy and Alex began this project when they were just 17 years old.

The film introduces us to several expert longboarders in each discipline of longboarding: slalom, downhill, footwork, and sliding. Most scenes are filmed in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

Q: Why did you decide to make this movie?

Jeremy: We started making short films with skateboarding, but then Jeremy started longboarding in elementary school. There weren't that many movies about it, so we decided to do it. Most people associate longboarding with just the downhill style. I wanted to show all the other styles like sliding and dancing as well. Everyone can enjoy longboarding because you can find your own style.

Meet the Adventurers of the Year: The Cove Filmmaker Louie Psihoyos

Last week we announced the 2009 Adventurers of the Year, selected for their extraordinary achievements in exploration, conservation, action sports, and humanitarian work. Now, for the first time ever, you can vote for the Readers' Choice Adventurer of the Year. To help you get to know them, we are going to highlight a different adventurer daily. You can only vote once, so make sure to check out each adventurers' profile, video, and photo gallery, before firing up our voting machine.

Behind Enemy Lines

If there is an oceanic equivalent to Fort Knox, it would be the cove outside the town of Taiji on Japan’s Honshu Island. For years, 24-hour patrols, razor wire fences, and a near-vertical landscape all conspired to keep a dark secret: Each fall, Japanese fishermen gathered there to corral and slaughter hundreds of dolphins for meat. No foreign activist had ever witnessed the carnage up close. Which is precisely why Louie Psihoyos showed up.

In 2005, Psihoyos, a former National Geographic photographer and budding filmmaker, decided to infiltrate the melee. To aid his mission, he assembled one of the most unique film crews in history. Continue reading this story >>

Aron Ralston's Survival Story Heading to the Big Screen

Danny Boyle, the Oscar winning director of Slumdog Millionaire just announced his next project: a mountaineer epic about the Colorado-based climber Aron Ralston, according to Variety. Ralston, of course, is best known for cutting off his right hand after an 800-pound boulder fell on it while hiking Utah's Bluejohn Canyon in 2003. The movie, called 127 hours, will chronicle Ralston's struggle to stay alive. Variety says the script is likely to be penned by Slumdog screenwriter, Simon Beaufoy. —Laura Buckley

Lance Armstrong and Other Top Cyclists Race Onto the Big Screen

As cyclists—including Lance Armstrong (pictured)—dealt with the 100-mile trail and 14,000-vertical-feet climbs for the annual Leadville 100 mountain bike race this past August, cameras followed to catch all the drama in the former mining town in Colorado. Now, Race Across the Sky: Leadville Trail 100 is set to debut on October 22 at 8pm EST in select cities. Along with the film, all audiences will be privy to a pre-recorded panel discussion with Armstrong (who, of course, won the race by nearly a half an hour), his coach Chris Carmichael, six-time Leadville 100 champion Davie Wiens, and other elite and amateur cyclists. They'll tell you how to use their personal, race-proven techniques to overcome every challenge, whether its the clock, the weather or a pesky 2 mile-high elevation. —Laura Buckley; Photograph courtesy of Race Across the Sky

Ken Burns's National Parks: Insider Escapes in Grand Teton, Great Smoky Mountains

Grand and great: these superlatives describe our wildest, most spectacular landscapes, as well as the forward-thinking Americans who thought to protect them. Wednesday night (September 30), Episode 4 of Ken Burns’s The National Parks: America’s Best Idea told the founding stories of Grand Teton and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks. Grand Teton was the brainchild of then-Yellowstone Superintendent Horace Albright, and Great Smoky sprang from the preservation efforts of travel writer Horace Kephart and Japanese-born photographer George Masa.

But both, it turns out, owe a great deal to Big Oil. At a time when the United States was too broke to consider buying private land for parks, philanthropist and oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, Jr. stepped forward and used his personal fortune to preserve these outsized landscapes and put them into the public trust. He bought 35,000+ acres of Jackson Hole and gave it to the U.S. government to establish Grand Teton NP, and donated $5 million to buy up roughly half of the land that now comprises Great Smoky Mountains NP. The result is two iconic, and wonderfully different, parks that are all of ours to enjoy. Here’s how:

Update: Japan Stops Dolphin Slaughter

It turns out, movies can make a difference. Richard O'Barry, the dolphin trainer turned dolphin activist who is the central character in the documentary The Cove, announced this yesterday:

Today is September 1st, the first day of the dolphin slaughter season in Japan. But when I arrived today by bus from Kansai Airport with media representatives from all over the world, the notorious Cove from the movie was empty. There were no dolphin killers in sight.

...And as I was talking with the police, as the international journalists stood around listening, suddenly a camera crew arrived from Japan! And then another! And then still another!

You have to understand that this is SO IMPORTANT. These TV stations have REFUSED to cover the story in Taiji for years and years. NOW, for the first time, they have shown up, with cameras rolling.

Read Ryan Bradley's previous post about the film, and its filmmaker, here.

This Weekend: First Annual Mountain Summit in Aspen, August 27 to 30

The directors of Mountainfilm in Telluride—which is seriously one of our favorite weekends of the year, thanks to its appealing mix of stunning location, thoughtful films, and stimulating discussions—are launching a new event this weekend: Mountain Summit in Aspen. Think of it as Mountainfilm Lite.

Video: New Ski Doc Captures Japan's Magnificent Backcountry Powder

If Japan doesn't come to mind when you think of world class backcountry powder, it should.  "It's the best snow I've ever skied in my life," said Nick Waggoner, Director of Sweetgrass Productions. "The best. Ever. ...It's known as a powder Mecca." Fresh out of six months in Hokkaido, Japan, Waggoner and the group of adventuresome twenty-somethings that make up Sweetgrass Productions are set to release their second feature length ski documentary. The film, Signatures (see trailer, above), follows the seasons of Japan along with the life of Taro Tamai, a Japanese rider akin to the likes of the original American boarding legend Craig Kelly. Signatures premieres September 19th in Aspen and Montreal. —Greer Schott

Amelia, the movie

Text by Alyson Sheppard

Perhaps the greatest adventure mystery of all time, the life and disappearance of American aviator Amelia Earhart, is coming to theaters in October 2009. The romanticized Amelia stars Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank as Earhart, the first woman to solo the Atlantic Ocean, who in a 1937 attempt to be the first pilot to circumnavigate the globe, inexplicably disappeared over the South Pacific.

Bollywood sensation Mira Nair directed the film, and Ronald Bass (How Stella Got Her Groove Back) and Anna Hamilton Phelan (Girl, Interrupted) wrote it, which we fear means Earhart will be depicted as more heated vixen than renowned explorer. Oh, and Amelia also touts heartthrobs Richard Gere as Earhart's husband and Ewan McGregor, portraying the man she shared a "brief, passionate affair" with.

How do you think it will end?