Adventure

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Far From Home: Uganda to the Tetons

When Brolin Mawejj was 12 years old, he made his way from Uganda to America — alone. He had spent his life living in a crowded, abusive home with his father and seven siblings. His journey to America was a mission to escape the abuse and meet his mother, who he hadn’t seen since he was two years old.

But his journey was marked with abandonment, isolation and rejection.

With the love and support of the Hessler family, who took the boy in as their own, Mawejj moved to Wyoming where he finally found his place in a strange world for a boy from a landlocked nation in Africa: the snowboarding community.

Mawejj is now a competitive snowboarder, realizing his potential as an Olympian, and a neuro-oncology intern at Harvard. Far from Home: Uganda to the Tetons follows Mawejj’s crushing lows and soaring highs as he seeks to fulfill his dreams of practicing medicine and representing Uganda in the 2018 Winter Olympics.

2:45 p.m. Saturday, March 7, Boulder International Film Festival, Boulder High School, 303-449-2283.

Jeff Lowe’s Metanoia

“Metanoia” is defined as a transformative life change. In 1991, Jeff Lowe chose this word to nickname his route on the north face of the Eiger. Lowe spent his life making remarkable contributions to the ice climbing community. He wrote classic books, worked to develop the modern-day ice screw and cam, brought the first Sport Climbing Championship to America, opened the ice park in Ouray, Colo. and invented the widely used grading system for mixed climbs. In the documentary Jeff Lowe’s Metanoia, filmmaker Jim Aikman tells Lowe’s epic life story, intertwined with footage of climber Ueli Steck’s attempt to repeat Lowe’s “Metanoia” route — a feat no one has achieved since Lowe.

5 p.m. Saturday, March 7, Boulder International Film Festival, Boulder, 303-449-2283.

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