To say that Tamo Campos knows the outdoors would be a bit of an understatement.
“[My] first day in the backcountry I was 11 days old in my dad’s backpack,” he said in an interview with The Interior News as he described his own intimate relationship with the mountains.
Campos is the co-director of The Radicals, an action sports-meets-environmentalism film.
Earlier this month, he and some other members from Beyond Boarding, responsible for producing the film, put on a screening for the film at the Bulkley Valley Brewery.
He says the documentary delves into the question of what it truly means to be a modern-day radical with regards to environmental stewardship and protection of the land.
“The outdoor community in some ways can be extractive, you know? We take our fun, our hobbies and our enjoyment from the outdoors, but what is our reciprocal relationship, what is our responsibility to the places we play?”
The film follows a number of skiers and snowboarders that have shifted away from extreme sports into the realm of activism as they venture into four separate-yet-connected communities all of which in their own way exemplify a radically different way of connecting with one’s surroundings.
Campos said that one of the biggest things playing on his mind while directing the film with co-director Brian Hockenstein was that, often times, film makers can be extractive in their processes as well.
To counter this, he said that consultants from each of the communities featured in the film were brought on early in the process to help shape the editing portion of the film in a way that was authentic to the respective communities’ stories.
“These were relationships we built over the last decade and this film was a way to tell stories that aren’t always told.”
On top of its unique blend of action sports and environmentalism, Campos said there are many other ways in which the movie stands out.
He says while there are a lot of doom and gloom-type environmental films out there, The Radicals is not one.
“[It’s about] four communities that are doing something, it’s about courageous individuals like … this group of women who camped on a fish farm for 200 days to showcase what was actually happening to their wild salmon, so I think in that way it’s a really inspiring film.”
He adds that he feels often times after people watch a film it gets them excited about a particular topic, however that interest often fades with time and subsequent movies watched.
To counter this, he says that 100 per cent of proceeds from the screening tour Beyond Boarding is putting on for the film are going back to the communities through a number of initiatives that are discussed in the documentary.
“It was just a way the film could keep giving back to the communities.”
The film has aired at a number of festivals, such as the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival and Whistler Film Festival.
