Colorado Filmmakers' Short Doc GRINTA! Selected for Prestigious BANFF Mountain Film Festiva

BOULDER, Colo. - EntSun -- Adjacent Lab Media announces that GRINTA!, a captivating short documentary about one of cycling's most audacious underdog victories, has been selected for the BANFF Mountain Book and Film Festival and New York City's Bicycling Film Festival screening in November 2025.

GRINTA! recounts larger-than-life Italian professional road cyclist Eros Poli's unlikely win in the 1994 Tour de France. The project began in spring 2024 when Boulder-based midlifers, Jay and Donna Crain considered what's next in the upcoming chapter of their lives.

"We had the idea to film Eros' story after sitting , the table and hearing him tell it over a glass of wine," said Director/Producer, Donna Crain. "We found it charming and inspiring and knew other people would too."

Part action, part romance, and pure grit, GRINTA! tells a little-known story. It portrays how thirty years before, Eros Poli—a towering 6'4" cyclist who typically finished last on climbs—defied all odds to conquer legendary Mont Ventoux in a solo breakaway on a brutally hot day. And it revisits him now as a grandfather who is still working in the cycling industry.

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"It just goes down as one of the great exploits in cycling history — in Tour de France history," said Bicycling Magazine Editorial Director Bill Strickland. "The way he won against one of the best Tour de France champions ever, against one of the best climbers ever. I would place it in the pantheon of great sporting achievements."

The Crains assembled a team of Colorado-based filmmakers, friends, and fellow midlifers: Co-Director Dean Del Calzo of meme and you, Producer Jed Mortenson of Waypoint Films, and Director of Photography Brook Aitken. Principal photography took place across stunning landscapes in Bédoin, France, and Italy's Veneto and Tuscany regions in fall 2024, GRINTA! was completed in June 2025.

"We're honored to be invited into competition during BANFF's 50th anniversary festival—one
of the most celebrated adventure film festivals in the world—as well as screening at the 25th anniversary of Bicycle Film Festival in New York," said Executive Producer Jay Crain. "Eros' story resonates for midlifers whether they're cyclists or not, because it's a reminder that we all have the capacity to be unlikely heroes in our own story."

SCREENINGS
BANFF Mountain Book and Film Festival, Alberta, Canada,  Saturday, November 1, 2 PM
Bicycling Film Festival, NYC, Sunday, November 9, 7:30 PM

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