Sport & Ecology Hand in Hand at 13th BOFF. Skiing the Fire Ring and Ice & Palms take the honours at Bovec Outdoor Film Festival. Both from adventures which tried to be friendlier to the environment.

During three days of screening films on outdoor sports and ecology in Bovec, Slovenia, the visitors voted two films as their favourites: Skiing the Fire Ring (as the Best Slovenian production film, prize sponsored by Fjällräven) and Ice & Palms (best international film). Like in 2018 edition, some 800 different visitors took part in screenings of 32 selected films on three nights of the 13th edition of BOFF (Bovec Outdoor Film Festival).

Skiing the Fire Ring's Sunday night premiere sold out the hall. The 30-minute film, a Croatian-Slovenian co- production, was shot in 2019 on a ski expedition to volcanic mountains Herdubreid and Askja in Iceland. The retired Croatian alpine ski champion Ivica Kostelić led the four men crew which also included Matej Bradaškja, a freeride skier from Bovec, camera man Miha Deisinger and climber, skier and photographer Jan Podgornik. Apart from six first descents in difficult weather conditions the crew can also be proud of their low footprint access to both mountains since they accessed them on skis with all their equipment and supplies dragged on sleds. »For me the soft access starts where the public transportation stops« Kostelić said in short on stage interview after the screening.

German produced Ice & Palms, the public choice among international films, has a similar message. The 32-minute film follows the adventure of two friends, freeskiers Jochen Meslet and Max Kroneck, from their homes in Germany all the way to Nice on the French Mediterranean coast. They load all their ski touring gear on their bicycles and ski some magnificent less crowded lines on their way to the sea. Philipp Becker and Johannes Müller of El Flamingo Films signed as authors while a third person camera was only present on 19 days out of the 42-day journey so the skiers provided footage from the rest of the trip themselves.