Film speaks to the adventure of rock climbing in the wild north

An outdoors adventure film that delves into the grip of rock climbing and several climbers' singular devotion to a project in the wild north screens Thursday in Minneapolis.

"Jeff's World" is the second in a series by Adventure MN Films director Brenda Piekarski. The hourlong film, which has played at film festivals across the country this fall, will screen at 7 p.m. in the Humphrey Center's Cowles Auditorium at the University of Minnesota.

Called a tale of "discovery, vision and grit," the film documents hardcore climbers Jeff Engel, Tyler Hoffart and Sean Foster and their travails trying to develop a rock climbing destination – Jeff's World – reachable via Crane Lake and several miles past Minnesota's border with Canada.

Engel's father discovered the area framed in granite outcroppings from his float plane years ago. A release on the film said Engel spent the next 15 years "building trails and bolting new routes to create the epic playground."

Piekarski's first film, released in fall 2014, chronicled the 2013 edition of the Arrowhead 135 — an ultra-race made up of bicyclists, runners and skiers enduring winter's extremes in the remote wilderness terrain between International Falls and Lake Vermilion.

Piekarski told the Star Tribune at the time:

"With Adventure Minnesota Films, I started out wanting to prove to the rest of the world we have an outdoor scene going on here, but it turned into showing people here in Minnesota that we have things going on. The more I talked to people, the more I realized that people, including me, didn't know these things were happening. It's been a constant eye opener — gravel bike racing, fat bikes, mountain biking, adventure racing, the endurance scene — there's so much."

Tickets for "Jeff's World" are $12. Buy them at adventuremnfilms.com.