ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — The French Broad River Academy is celebrating accomplishments of women in the outdoors with the No Man’s Land Film Festival.
The No Man’s Land Film Fest will screen from 5 to 8:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 30 on the north campus of French Broad River Academy, 1990 Riverside Dr.
According to their mission statement, the annual all-female film festival is dedicated to presenting “the full scope of athletes and adventurers by un-defining femininity in adventure, sport, conservation, and film.”
“It was started by a group of women who wanted more representation for other women who were doing amazing things outdoors,” said Katy Palombi, development director at FBRA. “It’s a male-dominated world in adventure film, so they created this space for women-focused, or even folks who identify as female-focused, films.”
No Man’s Land shorts cover all sorts of outdoor adventure and conservation efforts, making the film festival a natural match for FBRA. The gender-specific middle school teaches its students with outdoor experiences as much as algebra or Shakespeare.
“We have a field lesson every day. We’re out there teaching our students how to become better communicators, teamwork, all of the wonderful things and doing it by teaching them how to do a tandem canoe with another student,” Palombi provided. “The film festival was great in helping us pick films that are tailored to what we offer. Like, we have a great film on girls learning how to paddle kayak. We’ve got climbing, we’ve got skiing, so kind of just touching on a lot of the activities we do here with students.”
All of the proceeds from No Man’s Land tickets will go right back to the FBRA. The school, located right next to the French Broad River, was hit hard by Hurricane Helene last fall.
“We’ve lost a lot during the flood,” Palombi said. “We’re trying to raise a few funds to offset all the costs that we are incurring after.”
The eight short films that will be shown on Thursday range from two to 34 minutes in length – the program is about two hours long – and sport titles like “The Fabulous Life of Nancy Greene Raine,” a film about the Olympic skiing gold medalist.
Prior to the show, there will be a panel discussion between three local leaders in outdoor education: award-winning whitewater kayaking coach Anna Levesque, FBRA science teacher, athlete and surfski instructor Alessia Faverio and FBRA Girls Program director Tricia Chan. The panel begins at 5:30 p.m.
Palombi hopes the audience and especially FBRA students will come away from No Man’s Land inspired to try new things in the great outdoors.
“We have this girls program where, you know, we want to show them other women succeeding and doing amazing things. In the outdoor world and in life in general,” Palombi said.
For tickets to No Man’s Land Film Festival or more information about French Broad River Academy, visit www.fbra-avl.org/no-mans-land.
