The film contest was again the soul of the FIA El Yelmo festival this year, held on June 3 to 5 in the Sierra de Segura (Jaen, Andalusia, Spain), with a new comfortable and spacious cinema hall, where we saw some extraordinary productions focused on flight.
The Norwegian film “Last BASE” took the prize for best film, while the Argentinean “Airman”, by Fer Felicioni, about Andy Hediger’s intense life, was awarded best Aerial Sports film, and “Dare to soar – Flying with condors” from Austria and starring Hernan Pitocco and Horacio Llorens, was the best Adventure film of this Air Films Festival of El Yelmo.
“Last Base”, directed by Aslak Danbolt, tells the story of Joachim who is about to quit BASE jumping because he will soon become a father, but first he is going to live a last adventure with his best friend Øyvind. When a storm approaches, their friendship will be put to test. The award was delivered by the Deputy of Promotion and Tourism of the Province of Jaen, Manuel Fernandez.
The prize for the best film of Adventure was for the Austrian production “Dare to soar – Flying with condors”, by Claudio Von Planta, which follows paraglider pilots Hernan Pitocco (ARG) and Horacio Llorens (ESP) from the Pacific Ocean to the high mountains of the Andes range, specifically in Peru, to try to fly like the masters of flight in mountain terrain: the Condors, able to cover 
distances of hundreds of kilometres a day and climb to heights up to 5,000 meters, with their almost 3 meters of wingspan. The adventure almost had a tragic ending when Pitocco suffered an accident due to wind increase at the end of a flight, but nearly 3 months later and already recovered, he decided to resume the challenge and go back to the Andes with the team, to complete the tour and fly with the condors. You can watch it on www.redbull.tv
During the Festival, Horacio also presented the short film of his paramotor flight with the auroras borealis in Norway, done at the beginning of 2016, “Dancing with Aurora”, by Frode Sandbech. He took the opportunity to talk about his experience in that adventure and chat with the public, on Sunday morning. In recognition of his sporting career, FIA asked Horacio to leave his footprints on the Promenade of the Stars of flight, next to the headquarters of the flying club of El Yelmo, in El Ojuelo. The protagonist of “Airman”, Andy Hediger, also left his footprints there.
In the Nature in Flight category the first award was for the film “Venidos del cielo” (“come from the sky”), from Spain, that offers several stories of flyers that live next to us: storks, lesser kestrels, rock doves, bats, Bee-eaters, kingfishers, jackdaws, and others. On the other hand, the RTVA award to the best Andalusian Audio-visual creation was for “Kingfisher”.
Finally, the award for the best Aerial Sports film was for the Argentine documentary “Airman”, directed by Fernando Felicioni and focused on the character of Andy Hediger, a myth of air sports. You can see the full movie here.
The 17th edition of the International Air Films Festival gave away about 3,000 euros in prize money. In addition, the Festival awarded best Short film to the Swedish production “Freefall”, a prize consisting of 30 litres of Extra Virgin olive oil, provided by the regulatory Council of the denomination of origin “Sierra de Segura”. In total, the International Air Films Festival of El Yelmo showed 38 movies from 15 countries in their facilities with improved screen and sound, which were watched by hundreds of people over the weekend.
+Info: www.fiaelyelmo.com/cine/es/festival-internacional-de-cine-del-aire-2016/
