The First Ascent series continues to pick up big festival awards! The Wild & Scenic Environmental Festival granted Episode 3: Alone on the Wall the “Most Inspiring Adventure Film” award. Our young hero Alex Honnold was on hand to pick up the award in person, only to find it was being presented by none other than Captain Jean Luc Picard himself: actor Patrick Stewart. For young Alex — who is apparently a HUGE Trekkie — it was like shaking hands with a god. (just kidding everyone, we have no proof that Alex is into Star Trek at all, we just like messing with him). Alex’s mom was on hand to snap this pic.

Sender Films has launched a dedicated YouTube channel where fans can check out clips and trailers of all our past films and tv projects. From exclusive glimpses of our First Ascent TV series (coming soon!), to classics from the vault like Scary Faces and esoterica like the ‘Global Underwear Crisis.’ Check it out: youtube.com/senderfilms

From Montreal to Tblisi, The Sharp End has garnered a number of big film festival awards over the past year. Here is a rundown:

Graz International Mountain Film Festival (Austria) - Kamera Alpin in Gold
Int’l Mountaineering Film Festival, Teplice (Czech Republic) - Grand Prize
Tbilisi Int’l Mountain Film Festival Niamori (Georgia) - Grand Prize
Torelló Mountain Film Festival (Spain) - Grand Prize
X-Dance (Utah) - Best Adventure Film
Travel & Adventure Film Festival (Canada) - Best Mountain Film
St. Anton Mountain Film Fest (Austria) - Best Climbing Film
Boulder Adventure Film Festival (Colorado) - Best Climbing Film
Telluride Mountain Film Festival (Colorado) – World Tour Selection
Banff Mountain Film Festival (Canada) - World Tour Selection

If you don’t yet have your copy or are looking for the perfect gift for that special climber in your life, buy The Sharp End at our store.

At the Kendal Mountain Film Festival, Episode 3 of our First Ascent series, “Alone on the Wall”, garnered the Grand Prize AND Best Climbing Film. “Alone on the Wall” features superhuman free soloist Alex Honnold and his rope-less big wall ascents of Moonlight Buttress and Half Dome. Kendal is the premiere mountain film festival in the UK, and there were some serious challengers this year, so we were both surprised and extremely honored.

Check out this video of the Grand Prize announcement at Kendal

What a coincidence: Just as we were finishing up our Episode 6 for the First Ascent series, the final installment that features Dean Potter’s breathtaking innovations in the fields of climbing and BASE jumping, Dean was awarded Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic Adventure magazine for his world record wingsuit BASE jump of the Norh Face of the Eiger. We had captured this feat for First Ascent, so the magazine asked us to put together a short video. Check it out here.

The video contains a hint of the excitement to come in our groundbreaking series, coming out in 2010.

Tonight, at Jonny Copp’s amazing Boulder Adventure Film Festival, we premiere Episode 5 of the First Ascent Series, “Point of No Return,” which follows Jonny, Micah and Wade on their fateful expedition to China. This piece, which draws on extensive footage shot by Wade and recovered at the Mt. Edgar base camp after the tragedy, is obviously a huge deal for us, and we are so honored to have the opportunity to debut the piece at Adventure Film, where so many people who loved these three guys will be in attendance. Here is a short teaser.

Sorry for the long, fallow season of no blog posts, Sender fans. We have been holed up for the last several months mourning the loss of Wade, Jonny and Micah, and scrambling to finish some massive projects. But slowly life is returning to “normal” over here, and we will have a lot to report. The biggest news is the completion of ourFirst Ascent series for the Nat Geo Adventure Channel. We could not be more pleased with how it turned out, we are so grateful to the talented and eternally patient people over there at Nat Geo, and we think you guys are going to like it. A lot. Ok, stay tuned, more to come soon.

If you’ve visited our site over the last three weeks, you’ll have noticed that Sender Films has been temporarily on hold as we have been struggling with the loss of our close friends and co-workers in China. This tragedy has been unimaginably devastating – to us and to so many others — and its only for the amazing community around Jonny, Micah and Wade that we have been able to get through it thus far. Our deepest condolences go out to the families and loved ones of all three of these amazing guys. We, along with others, have been posting tributes, video clips, photos, memorial updates and stories at the Adventurefilm blog, please feel free to visit www.adventurefilm.com to share with the community.

There will be a Memorial Service open to the public on July 11 in Boulder, Co. Further details will be available on the Adventurefilm blog. Jonny Copp, Micah Dash and Wade Johnson were passionate about exploring the mountains, and they were equally passionate about sharing their experiences with the community through slides, essays, video and festivals. This memorial service is in that spirit of chasing your dreams and sharing your tales, and thus it is a chance for all the people who knew and loved these guys, and those who were inspired by them through their art, to celebrate their lives, and carry on their spirit.

To donate to the search fund (which is being transformed into a reoccurring grant), please click here.

Sender Films is very pleased to announce our new National Geographic International television series, “First Ascent.” Based on our popular film, the six part series will bring viewers around the world with top climbers and crazy characters in the never-ending quests for new routes. It has been our long-held goal to present the dirt-bag heroes of the climbing world to a broader global audience, and we are very psyched to be producing what we think is the first-ever series dedicated to rock climbing culture.

Here is the press release from Nat Geo.

We are currently polishing off the first two episodes. The first documents Chris Sharma’s latest 5.15 efforts in Spain and Clark Mountain, created in close collaboration with Big Up Productions. The second follows Renan Ozturk, Cedar Wright and Sean Leary on an epic trip to South America in honor of the great Roberta Nunes). We are going to be cranking all through the summer shooting and editing these and four other shows from Alaska to The Himalayas. First Ascent will be airing on Nat Geo’s international channels later this year. For more information, please visit www.natgeotv.com.

Home from South America, we got right back on the road, this time driving west from Boulder to the great American desert to shoot more for our new TV show.

We plunged into the desert splitters with Rob Pizem, roof-crack extraordinaire. Rob brought us to some isolated, perfectly horizontal roof cracks that he climbs with natural protection.

Next up, Steph Davis at Indian Creek, where we shot her new cutting edge project, Learning to Fly. The climb is totally splitter, and kicks back to about 15 degrees of overhang at the crux. Another beautiful day in the desert!

Once things got too hot in the Creek, we had to power through an epic sandstorm to arrive in Zion National Park.

Just in time to catch Alex “no big deal” Honnold casually free soloing the 1200-foot 5.12+ Moonlight Buttress – his first repeat of this breakthrough climb.

Photo by Celin Serbo
www.serbophoto.com

The rest of the trip we climbed and shot with Sonnie Trotter, Mike Doyle, and Lauren Lee on the likes of Mast Blaster and other Zion testpieces. Covered in sand, scorched from the sun, and utterly satisfied, we decided it was time to head back to Boulder, and back to the editing room.