[Editor’s Note: This month’s “Community Voices” column comes to us from the Trail Running Film Festival. In this column each month, we showcase the work of a writer, visual artist, or other creative type from within our global trail running and ultrarunning community. Our goal is to tell stories about our sport and wildlands in creative and innovative ways. Read more about the concept and submit your work for consideration!]
The Trail Running Film Festival was founded in 2013 by trail runner James Varner. These days, Varner and film festival partner Abram Dickerson, who is also a trail runner, work together to produce the fest. For 2020 and because of the COVID-19 public-health crisis, the project has gone virtual. Once a month from May through August, the festival is hosting a live online show where viewers gather virtually from around the world to watch a group of films. Each online gathering additionally raises money for a charity.
The next live show takes place on Saturday, June 6, and here’s where you can get a ticket. (Your ticket also gives you access to the show’s films through June 14, in case you can’t watch live.) The June show is raising money for the Band of Runners nonprofit, which provides trail running and outdoor opportunities for military veterans and their families.
The film fest is organizing a video project for each month of its 2020 virtual shows called Community Voices, a collaboration between the global trail-ultra community and visual artist Matt Trappe. Community members submit short videos on a specific theme, and Trappe produces a film with them. Since the project has the same name and a similar theme as iRunFar’s monthly column, we’re excited to be sharing the Trail Running Film Festival’s Community Voices films in this column several times this spring and summer.
Without further ado, enjoy part 1 of the Trail Running Film Festival’s Community Voices video project, which first aired during the festival’s virtual May edition, and which is about coping with and running during the pandemic:
You can participate, too! Head on over to the Trail Running Film Festival’s website to learn more about submitting your own videos to the project. Through Sunday, May 31, submit your own video for possible inclusion in June’s Community Voices video. (The deadline has been extended through this weekend.) June’s Community Voices theme is running through adversity, so the Trail Running Film Festival asks you to submit videos on how running supports you through difficult times in your life. Join this fun community project, and we’ll see you back here in June for the next edition of the Trail Running Film Festival’s Community Voices video project.
