The Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival (VIMFF) returns to the Rio Theatre from February 26 – March 3.

The Environment Show: Five outstanding films examine environmental issues from diverse perspectives, including fish farming, food security, habitat protection, and climate change. Features one world premiere.

300 MILES MELTING (USA / 25 min / English): Climate change is our planet’s number one threat. And one of its biggest targets is being overlooked: New England. We set out to make a film that paints this picture in a real and informative way by traveling Vermont’s 300-mile Catamount Trail on skis and learning from brilliant minds along the way.

A BEAR’S NECESSITIES (Canada / 10 min / English): One scientist’s decades-long mission to understand the secrets of black bear dens – and how to protect them before it’s too late.

LOSING BLUE (Canada / 16 min / English): What does it mean to lose a colour? Losing Blue is a cinematic poem that delves into the impending loss of some of the most extraordinary blues on Earth—the otherworldly blues of ancient mountain lakes. Glacier-fed alpine lakes each have a unique blue formed by the mountains and ice that shaped them. These intense colours hold the memory of “deep time,” geological processes millions of years old. Now climate change is rapidly accelerating environmental shifts and causing some of these spectacular blues to vanish. Losing Blue is an expansive metaphor for the massive and subtle impacts of climate change. With stunning cinematography, the film immerses viewers in the magnificence of lakes so rare that most have never seen them, pulling us in so that we experience these bodies of water as if we were standing alone on their rocky shores—witnesses to their power and acutely aware of what their loss would mean, both for ourselves and for the Earth. Filmmaker Leanne Allison’s narration intimately balances J.B. MacKinnon’s eloquent science writing. This short documentary gently asks what it might mean to forget that the ethereal blues of these lakes ever existed.

SALMON SECRETS – World Premiere (Canada / 41 min / English): Their culture thrived here for millennia but all this and more are being threatened by open net-pen salmon farms.

Saturday, March 2
Doors 6:00 pm | First movie at 7:00 pm *Start time subject to change. Please arrive on time.

Complete details and ticketing info can be found at www.vimff.org Please direct any questions or concerns about events or tickets to them.

This year’s festival is sharing over 70 curated mountain and adventure stories with the VIMFF community February 23 – March 3. The festival features special guest speakers, filmmaker intros, and expert-led workshops on photography, storytelling, and mountain safety skills.

*Minors permitted. Must be 19+ w/ID for bar service.
*All seating is General Admission. Please arrive early to ensure time for great seats, and to purchase treats at concession.
*Unless noted otherwise, tickets will be available for purchase at the Rio Theatre’s box office at showtime. Please direct all queries regarding ticketing to www.vimff.org
*Sorry, Rio Theatre Groupons and passes are n/a for this event.