VIMFF Presenters 2018 List is Stacked!

Adam Campbell likes to “suffer in beautiful places” and loves exploring his backyard and challenging himself on foot, skis and on rock. He was raised on the beaches of Lagos, Nigeria to Canadian parents, but now calls the Canadian Rockies home. He has competed in, and regularly place on the podium at, some of the world’s most challenging and competitive mountain running races and trail ultramarathons.

Adam Hart, co-founder of “Clear Impact Biohacking”, has spent the past 14 years providing forward thinking organizations with a blueprint for optimizing executive mental health and performance. Adam loves sharing how to increase cognitive energy and performance through biohacking. He does this by highlighting some of today’s top biohacks that are easy to implement and provide an immediate result on our mental and physical health.

Alex Hudson introduces US to the Iran that is seldom talked about in the press. Alex is an avid hiker and mountaineer based in the Lower Mainland. In the summer and fall of 2014 – 2017, Alex travelled from south Kish island in the Persian Gulf to the peaks in Northern Iran. Along the way, Alex passed through many historical sites, deserts, forests, river filled canyons, rugged pastures and the high peaks around Tehran.

Ben Page is a multi-award winning filmmaker, adventurer and photographer from the UK. He has spent the past few years travelling to some of the world’s remotest corners in search of wild and diverse adventures and experiences.

Chris Bertish is a Big Wave Surfing Mavericks champion; Stand Up Paddle Boarding Guinness World Record Holder and Ocean Pioneer. He recently redefined the concept of Extreme Adventure by becoming the first person ever to Stand Up Paddle across any ocean. Defying all odds, Chris paddled 7500km – solo, unsupported and unassisted – for 93 days, across the Atlantic Ocean from Morocco, Africa to Antigua in the Caribbean. This is a truly unparalleled global feat!

A climber and visual storyteller, Cory Richards was named National Geographic Adventurer of the year in 2012. Cory’s camera has taken him from the controlled and complex studio to the wild and remote corners of the world, from the unclimbed peaks of Antarctica to the Himalayas of Nepal and Pakistan-all in the attempt to capture not only the soul of adventure and exploration, but also the beauty inherent in our modern society.

After surviving a 100 foot groundfall in 2002, Craig went back to life on very uncertain terms.“My body and mind were so different, I didn’t know if I could, or wanted to ever climb again.” After moving past the feelings of just being happy to be alive, the rebuilding process began. Surges followed which screwed and plated his body back to a new “normal” but the mental game of deciding who this new person was, was just beginning.

Bonny Glambeck and Dan Lewis are veteran sea kayakers, having paddled much of the BC coast and trained hundreds of guides. They live off-grid near Tofino and commute by kayak year-round. For over 25 years they’ve worked to protect Clayoquot Sound, and were key organizers of the 1993 mass protests against clearcut logging. Currently they work at Clayoquot Action. They like to play chess while sitting out storms.

While completing an MA in Intercultural Communications at Royal Roads University, Darcy purchased a video camera and quickly found her passion for storytelling and visual arts. Since then, Darcy has written and directed short films, commercials, and music videos for clients ranging from Coca Cola to Patagonia to Jive Records.

Canada’s best known environmentalist, David Suzuki, has a deep and personal connection to the Salish Sea. His urgent call to protect the people and places we love couldn’t be more timely.  We only have #OneNature. It’s time for a new relationship with the ocean and its wildlife if we hope to leave a natural legacy for future generations.

Don Serl spent 35 years rock climbing, ice climbing, and mountaineering in the Coast Mountains of BC, with a special emphasis on exploratory trips into seldom-visited corners of the Range. With about a dozen trips into the Waddington Range and perhaps 30 others into various other remote sections of the Coast Mountains, netting roughly a hundred new routes, Don is in the uniquely privileged position of having experienced most of the major regions of the Coast Mountains, and having sampled the new route potential therein.

Istvan Hernadi is a retired IT engineer who spends his time exploring the mountains of BC, Yukon, Alaska, the Andes and the Himalayas. His photography is featured on Getty Images and his writings have appeared in several magazines. He self-published a number of photo books featuring his adventures in Bhutan, Sikkim and northern Canada. He is a Life member of the Alpine Club of Canada where he led numerous mountaineering, skiing and trail running trips in Western Canada.

Janneke Vissers, originally from the Netherlands, moved two years ago to North Vancouver to have a life with more nature, space and most important of all: mountains. Having the summer off this year, waiting for her visa to be approved, created a perfect situation to spend some time hiking and discover Canada’s most beautiful mountains.

Blurring the lines between artist and adventurer, Jessa Gilbert creates artworks that celebrate adventure and wilderness, drawing inspiration directly from her travels and exploration in the backcountry. She grew up in Upstate New York before moving to Vermont to study Art and Art History at the University of Vermont… and to snowboard. She worked primarily as a product developer in Vermont while also competing nationally in freestyle snowboarding through the sponsorship of various brands.

Jim Herrington is a photographer whose portraits of celebrities including Benny Goodman, Willie Nelson, The Rolling Stones, Cormac McCarthy, Morgan Freeman and Dolly Parton have appeared on the pages of Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Esquire, GQ, Outside and Men’s Journal as well as on scores of album covers for more than three decades. He has photographed international ad campaigns for clients such as Thule, Trek Bikes, Gibson Guitars and Wild Turkey Bourbon.

Jimmy Martinello’s roots lay in the Sea to Sky Corridor for the last 30 years, home town Squamish British Columbia where he lives with his beautiful wife and two amazing children. He has been an avid adventurer his whole life and in the last 25 years his travels and adventures have taken him across the globe. He has been passionate about photography and film for the last 20 years documenting his explorations.

John Price is an photographer & climber. He has spent the last six years traveling all over the world, while basing himself out of Canada. Over the last three years John has been actively climbing and photographing rock, ice and alpine ascents throughout North America, including the deserts of Nevada, the Ruth Gorge in Alaska, the remote corners of the Himalaya, rural Japan, recently in Alaska & the French Alps and extensively throughout the Canadian Rockies.

Friends Natasha, Kat and Ania set out on the Annapurna Circuit with Tila, their female Nepali mountain guide, to cross one of the highest traversable passes in the world, Thorong La (17,769 feet/5,416m). They join VIMFF to inspire fellow everyday women who want to plan their own adventure.

Capturing the essence of adventure in more than 60 extreme films has taken Emmy award winning cameraman and filmmaker Keith Partridge to some of the world’s most hostile and spectacular environments from deep within the bowels of the earth on caving expeditions, through unchartered forests to the summit of Everest.

A tale about four adventurous friends and their story being some of the first people to have SUP toured the Broken Island archipelago. White sandy beaches in BC? Camping in old growth forests? Hell yeah! But getting there involves traversing windy channels and currents on paddle boards loaded with gear. A show with a twist, high flying acrobatics, live music, and an inspirational story that’ll leave you craving island adventures.

Laddie Hannam and Ann Taylor met on the trails during a KneeKnacker training run back in 2003. After 10 KneeKnacker Trail Races that both completed in the same year some 13 years later in 2016, team “Over the Hill” trail running was formed for the TransAlps after watching a bunch of local runners successfully complete the year prior. Fear of Missing out (FOMO!) captured them and now they both have a beautiful adventure to share, figuring the time was “now” as they weren’t getting any younger and are still able to run after all these years, while managing a bunch of injuries.

At 14 years old, Lilliana Libecki has already travelled to every continent on the planet. She has discovered a passion for humanitarian work on 4 major expeditions and has founded a non-profit charity organization – ‘The Joyineer Fund’.

In 2017, Lorraine and Robin received the MEC Adventure Grant to pioneer and develop backcountry mountain bike trails with local communities in the Atacama Desert of South America. Lorraine and Robin will join us to tell the story and premiere their film about the project.

Back by popular demand, Coast Mountain Epic is a live multi-media presentation detailing a five and half month long ski traverse of the Coast Mountains of BC and Alaska. Undertaken from January to June of 2017 by a mother and daughter team from BC, this presentation features their challenges, close-calls, failures and successes throughout the “Epic”.

Come join National Geographic Explorer Mike Libecki as he takes us on a journey to some of the most remote climbing expeditions possible while searching for first ascents in Antarctica and Greenland.

After decades of recovery efforts and millions in taxpayer dollars, the jewel in Vancouver’s backyard, Howe Sound, is coming back to life. The herring have returned, and with them, the salmon, dolphins, and whales. However, all of this is yet again under threat. Heavy industrial projects are proposed for Howe Sound, including Woodfibre LNG, its associated FortisBC pipeline and compressor station at Mt. Mulligan, and the Burnco gravel mine in the McNab Creek watershed.

A woman from Iran: Breaking boundaries to reach top the world As a girl growing up in the traditional and religious society of Iran, perhaps dreaming about reaching the top of the world without any support seems far-fetched, but not to Parvaneh.

Rick Arikado has completed 105 ultras with the first one being the 1992 Knee Knacker. Nine 200+ mile races, starting with Tahoe 200 in 2014 and Moab 240 miler as the longest & most recent. His first race was a road half marathon in 1986. Suzanne has somewhere around 75-80 ultras completed ranging in distance from 50k to 200 mile distance with the Knee Knacker being her first one in 2004.

Born in 1945, Rob Wood grew up in a village on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors in England. His teenage years were preoccupied with rock climbing. Studying architecture for five years in London during the mid sixties, Rob was lured west by Expo 67 and the Canadian wilderness. He made the first British ascent of the Nose of El Capitan in 1968 and pioneered Ice climbing in the Canadian Rockies in the early 70’s.

The story of Shawn Emmett’s and Steve Tersmette’s 2017 MEC Adventure Grant expedition: travel nearly 280 km by roughly combining the Southern Purcell Traverse and the Bugaboos to Rogers Pass traverse, two of the grand ski traverses in Western Canada, in the summertime on foot. They got it done, but it was far from easy.

Susan Hui is just another ordinary back of the pack runner who has a nickname “Turtle”.  Having been diagnosed with Long QT Syndrome and Arrhythmia in 2010, Susan was was told by her cardiophysiologist that she should stop running or any form of stremous exercise that would stress her heart. In addition, she was also told she has hereditary premature bone degeneration.

Thorin Loeks is a singer-songwriter/adventurer from the Yukon Territory, who has pedalled, paddled and hiked his way around North America, always bringing his guitar and writing music along the way.

Yves has a background as an independent and NFB producer who has been active in Canada’s film industry for over 15 years.  In that time, he has produced numerous short & feature-length narrative & documentary films as well as animated films and interactive media works.