The Appetite Seminar

America's Longest Running Mountain Bike Ride

The Appetite Seminar is America’s longest running annual mountain bike ride. Every year on Thanksgiving morning, hundreds of riders - young, old, and everywhere in between - meet in the birthplace of mountain biking to ride the grueling Pine Mountain loop, just as a half-dozen forefathers of the sport first did in Fairfax, California in 1975.

It started as an excuse among friends to meet up for a ride and work up an appetite - to earn your turkey. Now, as then, there is no official organizer of the event. There are no prizes. There is no advertising. So what - and who - keeps this ride alive? To find out, we dive into the history and follow the characters, both old and new, who make this rolling tradition unique.  

Currently in production. 

The Igloo

Man's Oldest Question

There are many ways to experience "the infinite".  Near-death experience, deep meditation, psychedelics, brain damage, and mystical or divine encounters are more extreme examples, but these connections can happen at any time.  

The Igloo is an examination into the nature of consciousness.  It's a question that can never be answered, but one that we must continue to ask, just as man has done since he first gained the consciousness he seeks to understand.  We will explore this topic in a series of short documentaries, the first of which will feature the author of Dark Night, Early Dawn and Professor Emeritus at Youngstown State, Dr. Chris Bache, and Lama Geshe, the Nepalese lama who blesses climbers preparing to summit Everest.

Shooting began in 2017 and will continue indefinitely.

Official Selection

Resting on their laurels

The film festival world is full of characters.  If you've ever attended one, you already know what we are talking about.  While visiting Sedona Film Festival, we were inspired to document these archetypes into a cast of characters and create our first narrative film in the form of satire.  Think "Best In Show" for film festivals instead of dog shows.  

Shooting in 2020.

Carrying Stones

Ties That Bind

Carrying Stones is a series of sculpture, performance and video works by Bay Area artist Sawyer Rose that explores the double burden of women who work paid jobs and are also responsible for unpaid domestic labor at home.  

43 participants are currently tracking paid, unpaid, and leisure hours in a custom application built for this project.  The first project, 'ties that bind' will be a sculptural data visualization of those hours, made of one thousand handmade tiles, each representing an hour of time.  This documentary explores the artist's vision and execution of this project.

Part one is complete with additional chapters scheduled as the project continues.

At What Price

Photography in the Age of Social Media

Since its world premiere at the Banff Mountain Film Festival, At What Price has had an amazing run on the film festival circuit, including People’s Choice at Ottawa Adventure Film Festival, Best In Show at the Dirtbag Festival and Best Mountain Film at the Mountain Film Festival. It's been such a pleasure and we again thank everyone who made it possible (especially Ruby, the dog, who never made the credits).  Click the photo above and please enjoy responsibly.  

What's this film all about?

Success in today's adventure world is tied closely to promotion through social media. Often times more 'likes' equates to commercial success through sponsorship and exposure. In this short documentary, emerging professional climbing photographer John Price reveals, with searing honesty, what it takes to make it in an era of 24-hour social media without selling your soul as an artist. Beautiful mountain imagery accompanies this unique and potentially discomfiting message that will challenge viewers to re-think their own social media habits.

Abide

Not all superheroes wear capes.  Some wear bathrobes.

The Big Lebowski has gone from a largely ignored film to a cultural touchstone spanning generations.  At the center of it is The Dude - a religious figure for the non-religious, a model citizen for the perpetually stoned, a superhero for a demented world.  Around this cult figure a philosophy, a religion, and a way of life has grown along with a following of ‘achievers’.  One of these achievers is Wick.  Transforming like Superman in a phone booth, Wick becomes The Dude and that’s all it takes - people are drawn to him like moths to the flame.  But why?  Wick isn’t one to ask why, but he knows a gift when he sees it.  He’s using his nascent fame at music festivals such as JamCruise and One Big Holiday not just to ‘make everyone’s day a little better’ but to support Funk Abides, his charity foundation that uses the power of music to provide instruments to underprivileged children.  

As they say in The Big Lebowski: “Sometimes there’s a man...well, he’s the man for his time and place - he fits right in there.”  Wick is that man.  Wick is that dude.  And the dude abides.

In this film we will address the cultural phenomenon of The Big Lebowski using Wick’s adventures as an entry point. We’ll follow him onto his home turf – music festivals – to witness his ministry of joy. And we’ll introduce Funk Abides – and giving back in general - as a worthy cause for all who abide.

Currently in production.

Snowshoe Thompson

Father of North American skiing and bad-ass mailman

Snowshoe Thompson is a heroic figure in every sense of the word - and arguably the father of skiing in North America - but you've probably never heard of him.  In the 1850s, the Western US was exploding in popularity due to the Gold Rush, but the young nation's infrastructure had not yet caught up.  As a result, communications over the Sierra Nevada were completely cut off from the outside world after the winter snows began.  Snowshoe took it upon himself to hand-deliver sacks of mail over the Sierra Nevada on his back in the winter using 'snow-shoes' (skis) that he remembered from his youth in Norway and fashioned himself out of 10 foot logs.  He had no shelter and very little gear, but somehow had no trouble navigating through blizzards for 20 winters.  A group of people recently tried to recreate his journey using modern gear - and failed.  Controversy swirls around whether he was ever paid by the US government for any of his work for the post office.

Our film will tell his story through the eyes of a child listening to bedtime stories.  Our hope is to shine a light on an unsung American hero and examine whether men and women were made of 'different stuff' in eras past.  

Shooting in 2020.