Alan Formánek

Alan comes from what is now called Slovakia (former Czechoslovakia), the buzzing place known for local gourmet feta cheese dumplings, the mysterious Tatra mountain range with its climbing mountain goats, and often mixed with Slovenia. He remembers being mesmerized by the peaks of the High Tatras ever since, and he started climbing at the age of 14. By the ripe age of 16 he was already leading dubious rock routes using home made climbing shoes, home made pitons, and (almost) home knitted ropes.

His climbing passion eventually brought him to freeing old aid routes in the Tatras, climbing rock routes in the Alps and the Dolomites, doing a few long winter enchainments/mixed climbs around the Old Continent, and finally tasting the real Italian pizza. The climbing passion hasn’t loosened its grip on Alan until now, although he shifted his attention towards treating climbing more like means of a personal mind-body growth, sort of moving meditation, if not as a pure route to enlightenment. To this scope he has organized numerous workshops on ‘how to cobble your own climbing shoes’, and he has also been known as an avid propagator of the benefits of ropeless free climbing.

Alan studied Electrical Engineering and Comparative Literature. He later blended his academic credits with his blasting climbing fire to create two mountain film festivals in Vancouver and Bratislava (Slovakia). In his studies he zoomed on film and literature and on the ways of adapting novels into films. He wrote a thesis on adapting the Carmen novel into three different films, and he is planning to make his own climbing adaptation of ‘Carmen la grimpeuse’ with Jonathan Slator, starring Lynn Hill as Carmen and John Bachar as José.

links: www.vimff.org

Walter Daroshin – Jury Chair

Pat Ament

Deanna Byck

Alan Formánek

Jennifer Jordan

Patrick Lovell

Gary Nate