A homegrown festival in remote Wallowa County is betting that big-name documentaries, a few westerns and a lot of mountain scenery can draw film lovers to a corner of the West most people have never seen.
Hells Canyon is the deepest river gorge in North America, and above it the Eagle Cap Wilderness rises in a wall of glacier-carved peaks. Between them sits Wallowa County, Oregon. Starting next month, it also has a film festival.
The inaugural Eagle Cap Film Festival runs Nov. 5-7 across the county’s mountain towns, with nine films over three days. Portland News has the exclusive official sneak preview in the festival’s new sizzle video, below.
OFFICIAL SNEAK PREVIEW: https://youtu.be/KZ2vQKRUwPQ
The lineup is small, but it has reach. “Everest: The Other Side,” the new IMAX documentary from “Free Solo” directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, arrives in Wallowa County within days of its worldwide theatrical and IMAX release from Walt Disney Studios and National Geographic Documentary Films.
One of the faces on screen is a local. Erich Roepke, a cinematographer and on-camera member of the Everest expedition, grew up in the county and is bringing the film home.
The festival has also landed something that is hard to see anywhere else. It will pair Bryan Fogel’s Oscar-winning “Icarus” with its sequel, “Icarus: The Aftermath,” which follows Russian whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov after he helped expose the Kremlin’s state-sponsored doping program. According to the festival, major streamers have held the sequel back since its Telluride Film Festival premiere because of the sensitivity of its subject, making Eagle Cap one of very few places in the world to see it.
The rest of the slate includes “The Last Dive,” “Last Breath,” “The Man Who Saves the World” and “Isolate Thief,” plus the westerns “Old Henry” and “Butcher’s Crossing.”
Two locals run the festival. Co-founder Cody Sheehy grew up in Wallowa County and went on to found the production company Rhumbline Media. His documentary “The Last Dive” won Best Cinematography at the 2025 Tribeca Festival, was featured at the Louvre and has been an official selection at more than 50 festivals. At Eagle Cap, it gets a hometown screening.
His co-founder, Zach Halpern, moved to the county in 2021 after finishing medical school. He saw the potential for a festival almost immediately and has since been deeply involved in the area’s music and film scene.
Sheehy said the idea was to build the festival around the audience rather than the industry. “We built ECFF for the person in the seat,” he said. “This is a return to the reason we all fell in love with movies in the first place. Every film here earns its place, and we want you walking out of each one thinking: that was awesome.”
That philosophy shows up in the format. Every screening is followed by a behind-the-scenes conversation with the filmmakers, and the schedule mixes in forums, live music, a community street party and wilderness excursions. Things get underway Nov. 5 with a concert by The Band Joseph at the historic OK Theatre.
The organizers are open about the model they have in mind. Telluride and Aspen turned alpine scenery into festival destinations. Eagle Cap is pitching Wallowa County as the same kind of mountain backdrop, before the rest of the world catches on.
Tickets, passes and the full schedule are available at eaglecapfilm.com.
