Tagged: Sun Valley

Sun Valley is no stranger to film. Several movies have been shot in the Wood River Valley, including 1985’s “Pale Rider” starring Clint Eastwood.  Last year, after finishing his latest story, screenwriter Ted Grennan came up with an idea that would add to the local film scene.    

“I really didn’t know what I was going to do next and a friend called and I said ‘What about a film festival in Sun Valley,’ and he said ‘there are film festivals everywhere.’ And I said ‘there is not one in Sun Valley’ and he said you might be on to something,” explains Grennan.

The Sun Valley Film Festival gets underway today with its first ever Screenwriters Lab. Writer and actor Will McCormack will lead the three hour discussion.  You might recognize McCormack from a few appearances on the Sopranos or the film Syriana. 

But lately this actor turned screenwriter is best known for his breakout movie Celeste and Jesse Forever. He wrote that film with Rashida Jones who appears on the sitcom Parks and Recreation.

The Family of Woman Film Festival is underway in Sun Valley. One documentary that will be shown this weekend comes from Nisha Pahuja, a filmmaker who splits her time between India and Toronto. Her film, “The World Before Her,” looks at two different groups of women.

Most of the films you’ll see this weekend at the Family of Woman Film Festival in Sun Valley come from overseas. The festival will feature films from Egypt, Democratic Republic of Congo, and India. Only one film comes from the U.S. The Invisible War, which exposed the sexual assaults in the U.S. military. That documentary was recently nominated for an Academy Award. 

A ceremony in Sochi, Russia a few days ago started the one year countdown to the 2014 Winter Games. Here in the Northwest, the Sun Valley, Idaho ski team has set a goal to get at least six of its skiers or snowboarders on Team USA in Sochi. 

This year marks the fourth annual Sun Valley Nordic Festival.  It includes the longest running cross-country race in North America.

The festival illustrates why Sun Valley is sometimes called Nordic Town USA. People get pretty excited about bundling up and cheering on a group of skiers to a snowy finish line.

Web surfers from anywhere in the world can remotely skip a stone across a Sun Valley lake this week.  A robot controlled through a person’s computer keyboard and the Internet makes this possible. 

Skippy stands about three feet tall and two feet wide along the shore of a private, mountain lake near the Sun Valley resort. 

Daniel Murphy directs Interactive Production at ad agency, Eleven Inc.  The San Francisco firm designed, engineered, and built the robot.