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Pemberton resident Peter Chrzanowski calls himself a para-evangalist. He’s trying to spread the gospel of paragliding — a sport he discovered in 1990 and has been making films about ever since.
“I’d be honoured if I could help take the sport out of the closet,” Chrzanowski said, channelling the sentiment of Ski Bums director John Zaritsky and his desire to bring the ski bum culture out into the open.
Chrzanowski seems to be making progress in his quest to help popularize the sport in North America. One of his most recent films, Sacred Flight, was chosen as part of the lineup for the upcoming Vancouver International Film Festival.
He said he feels honoured to have the film accepted — his short documentaries are typically screened at smaller festivals on the mountain circuit. The world premier of Sacred Flight is set for Oct. 6 at Pacific Cinémathéque in Vancouver.
While the 24-minute film is about paragliding, it goes far beyond Chrzanowski “hucking” himself off a mountain in South America. Reaching the ultimate goal of his flight was like a religious pilgrimage of sorts, he said.
Part adventure sports film, part personal journey and part environmental warning, Sacred Flight is Chrzanowski’s story and also the story of the Kogi people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range in Colombia. The reclusive indigenous people have largely kept their traditional ways by avoiding contact with the outside world, and they guard and defend the mountain summits they call home.
The spectacular mountain range and the Kogi captured Chrzanowski’s imagination when he was just 12, reading about the location in National Geographic. With glaciers located less than 100 kilometres from the Caribbean and indigenous people living in “cone huts,” it was a place right out of Star Trek, he said.
Chrzanowski first travelled to the Sierra Nevada in 1998 with the goal of gaining access to ski. He made a film about the experience, but the Kogi turned him back before he could reach the summits.
A decade later, he returned with a new outlook and his paraglider, and he was granted one flight.
“It became almost… a spiritual experience accomplishing it,” he said.
There are lessons to be learned from Sacred Flight, and the Kogi people. Chrzanowski said his experiences taught him that you can’t force your ideals onto any culture, and how important it is to respect, listen and look.
When it comes to the film, he said he hopes people get the message to believe in their inner power — not what society says.
“You can do whatever you set out to do if you put your mind to it,” Chrzanowski said.
The film was co-directed by Chrzanowski and Squamish filmmaker Ivan Hughes. Chrzanowski said Hughes shaped the storytelling of Sacred Flight, including more elements of the adventurer’s history and personal journey.
Though he only recently built a house on his property in Pemberton, Chrzanowski has a long history in the Sea to Sky region. With a desire from an early age to travel and ski, he started a photography business in Whistler and then moved into making ski films.
A risk taker and extreme skier, he said he found the sensation of flight that deep powder gives was easier to achieve with paragliding.
His current project is a feature documentary, ParaCinderella, about his global quest to find a woman to share his life with — a woman who also enjoys flying. He’s also working on developing an adventure race called X-Andes, modeled after the Red Bull X-Alps.
Chrzanowski said he’s working on arranging a small screening of Sacred Flight at the Pemberton Library, and he is considering entering the film into the 2009 Whistler Film Festival. For more on his various projects and films, visit www.explorex.net.
