The BASE jumping short film “The Flip” won the 2019 National Geographic Wild To Inspire Short Film Competition. It toured the world before its online release today.

Although short, the BASE jumping film “The Flip” is impactful. Made by American filmmaker Reed Rickert, who now lives in Mexico, the three-minute movie has gone on to screen worldwide in festivals including the Banff Mountain Film Festival, San Jose International Short Film Festival, and more. It also won the 2019 National Geographic Wild To Inspire Short Film Competition, which focused on “Everyday Explorers: those among us who inspire exploration with their curiosity and determination.”

The film is being released online for the first time today and it can be viewed at http://vimeo.com/reedrickert/flip.

According to Rickert, one of the questions the film looks at is what drives us to step beyond the bounds of what we know even when the stakes are high, possibly fatal? “The Flip” is a short adventure sports documentary film that follows French skydiver Remi Angeli as he attempts his first ever gainer while BASE jumping from a bridge in Mexico. “I think the success of the film is due to Remi’s charisma, but also because the story connects with a more universal human experience when Remi’s motivations become clear and he must confront his fears,” says Rickert.

Remi Angeli was born in Avignon, France, where he worked his way up in the world of skydiving. For the past nine years he has lived in Mexico and continues to travel the world working as a free-fly coach and organizing skydiving events. He currently has over 12,500 skydiving jumps. He is just beginning to explore the discipline of BASE jumping and has registered only 30 jumps.

Reed Rickert is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has produced, directed, photographed and edited various documentaries, TV programs and commercials in the USA, Mexico, France, Morocco and Spain. He is a two-time finalist of National Geographic’s Wild To Inspire Short Film Competition and the 2019 winner. In 2009 Reed won the Latino Public Broadcasting Open Call Award to make the feature documentary, “The Third Root.” Reed was a division 1 soccer player at the University of Maryland where he began his studies in Anthropology before graduating from California College of the Arts with a BFA in Film/Video. As an avid rock climber and explorer, Reed is drawn to stories in adventure sports, music, and nature and cultural conservation.