Rated X for extreme
Forget Hollywood movies. This stuff is the real deal. Monday, March 20, the "Best of Banff Mountain Film Festival" rolls into Charlottesville with a collection of awe-inspiring videos to amaze outdoor enthusiasts and thrill-seekers alike.
The lineup includes films by "amateur and professional filmmakers from around the world," said John Holden of Blue Ridge Mountain Sports, the local sponsor of the event.
This year, moviemakers submitted 138 films from 22 countries to the festival. A pre-selection committee chose 37 finalists from the group. An international jury then judged the finalists and awarded winners in four different groups.
Film topics include climbing, skiing, river adventures, mountain culture and the environment.
In "118 Days in Captivity of Ice," which won best film on mountain sports, four explorers try crossing the Arctic Ocean from Russia to Canada through the North Pole with no aircraft support.
"True Fans," the recipient of the People's Choice Award, documents a 100-day bicycle tour from Venice Beach, Los Angeles, to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Massachusetts.
Following the annual three-day "Banff Mountain Film Festival" in Banff, Alberta, Canada, which took place in November 1999, the tour will hit many major U.S. and European cities.
"There were so many really cool films," Holden recalled of the 12 potential movies he viewed. Out of these, he selected six or seven for the Charlottesville festival.
The festival will take place in the Newcomb Hall Theatre. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door. Proceeds will benefit Madison House.
In the works
Dr. Charles Saoge-Moses had a problem. As a top public health official in Accra, Ghana, he realized many health workers in this poor country are being stuck by dirty needles that have not been properly disposed. Saoge-Moses approached William Walker, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the University, who assembled a team of five undergraduate and five graduate students to create a lower-cost method of syringe disposal.
Although Janine Jagger, director of the University's International Healthcare Worker Safety Center, was a forerunner in developing the first methods of syringe disposal, these methods are too expensive for impoverished countries such as Ghana.
Since October 1998, Walker's team has narrowed their project down to two designs, one resembling a peg board and the other a "butterfly" device, which opens for use and folds for storage.
The National Collegiate Invention and Inventor Association recently granted the team $20,000, which will finance design refinement, market analysis and prototypes by Feb. 28, 2001.
After further development, the group will seek corporate partners to license the technology and produce the products. The team hopes the World Health Organization one day will distribute the goods in developing countries.
Compiled by Allison Botos
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