Celluloid heroes

The appetite for Tahoe-centric sports films has never waned, and with a new ski season just underway, a new event sponsored by filmmakers and a local online community and events site aims to bring this film experience to revelers in the popular bars on both sides of the lake.

The first Stay Local Tahoe Film Crawl features all local filmmakers that showcase all the outdoor thrills that Tahoe has to offer, but in bite-size doses that are easy to view in a pub-crawl atmosphere.

The idea was Jeff Brissette's. He runs the Stay Local sites on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. This is where people from all around Lake Tahoe can post photos and share experiences about lake life. Through the site, Brissette met Bevan Waite, a Tahoe filmmaker with Mountain Grown Media.

“When I first saw the films he was making, I was like, ‘Wow, this kid has some amazing talent,'” Brissette said.

As it happens, Waite did a similar, more DIY crawl last year in Tahoe, but not to quite the extent that this year's Stay Local crawl encompasses. They teamed up after Brissette noticed not only Waite's work, but also some of the outdoors films that other Tahoe artists were doing.

“I started to see these little films sprout up everywhere, so I thought it would be a great opportunity do something like a film crawl,” Brissette said.

The film crawl is split over two days and two venues, fitting in with the all-lake vibes of the parent Stay Local promoter. There will also be raffles from ski and snowboard companies, and the filmmakers will be at the events to speak with attendees.

For the South Lake portion of the crawl, Saturday Nov. 16, crawlers can head first to The Hangar, 2401 Lake Tahoe Blvd.; followed by Tahoe Aleworx, 2050 Lake Tahoe Blvd.,; then South Lake Brewing Co., 1920 Lake Tahoe Blvd.

For the Truckee portion, Sunday Nov. 17, it starts at the Station, 10095 River St.; followed by Best Pies, 10068 Donner Pass Road; and then Alibi Ale Works, 10069 Bridge St.

The same films will be shown at both events. They include several that are five minutes or less: “Color Rush” and “Lel” from the company Verb Cabin, and “Fire and Ice” and “Mountain Flame” from Mountain Grown Media.

The rest range from 10 to 25 minutes, and include “Ramen Warriors” and “Range of Light” from Janky Films, “Another Way” from Verb Cabin, and “Our Family” from Mountain Grown Media. Both nights conclude with 7 Stages of Blank, an hour-long feature from the Blank Collective.

Brissette said that Stay Local is expanding as well, planning film crawls in other cities as well as more film events in Tahoe. And the organizers are already thinking about next year's festival.

Part of that impetus is the high quality of the films, no matter their running time.

“These films are not just guys getting drunk on skis,” Brissette said. “They all have a good narrative. Bevan's got one called ‘Our Family,' that's kind of like a wolf pack of guys, and we've seen that kind of quintessential story before, but there's also an environmental theme to it. A lot of them have global messages that could really work anywhere.”