Banff Mountain Festival Film Tour Flys High and Dives Deep

Rob Howard / 30.09.2024

The Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour is ongoing for 2024 and there is still time to get to one of the final dates.

The show is a best-of selection from films submitted to the international Banff Festival and it’s always an inspiring night out with films on a range of mountain sports, expeditions and explorations. 

I recently watched this year’s Blue programme in the UK and it encompassed skiing, sailing, paragliding, BASE jumping, caving and climbing (no mountain biking this time). If there was a common theme it was humour – there were a lot of laughs through the night, as well as some more serious themes and the expected heart stopping, wow-moments.

The programme opened with ‘Going Greenland’, following Rachael Burks and Jessica Baker on a sailing trip around western Greenland’s fjords and mountains.  They were looking for new gullies to explore and found some pristine descents to make in stunning surroundings, accessible from the sea. 

Their yacht was set up to use renewable energy only, so there was no motoring when the wind wasn’t helping, not unless the solar panels could provide enough charge, which they didn’t.  This limited their options and some of that frustration came through as the two skiers were stuck on the boat for long periods.  There are no perfect solutions for green exploring and travel, not yet.

Two similar films about a passion for sport triumphing against the odds were ‘Mustafa Ceylon’ and ‘Cenote’.  Mustafa is a Turkish immigrant to Switzerland and having discovered skiing he pursued his passion against all the odds (and despite some bone crunching falls which had the audience wincing).  With charisma and determination he became a local ski hero and now works in a ski-shop.

Mexican papaya farmer Adolfo ‘Fito’ Trujillo followed his instinct too and has now made climbing his living.   He began climbing the walls of Cenotes in Yucatan for fun and the mystical fresh water sink holes are magical settings for free-climbing.  Only later did he discover that rock climbing was actually a sport!  With better equipment he improved and developed new routes, and now he runs a climbing gym and training company.

The longest film was ‘Subterranean’ and it follows two teams of hobbyist cavers trying to descend the longest and deepest caves in Canada.  As they follow narrow and flooded tunnels to places no human has been before they are opening up new frontiers, and the challenges of living underground for days on end are documented.  (The technical ability of the film makers in the conditions was incredible.)  As the stories unfold, with success and failure, there is a lot of Canadian understatement and dry humour, including a memorable caving song, a genre of music that might be new to you!

Both the flying movies provided edge-of-the-seat moments and laughs in equal measure.  ‘Eternal Flame’ is the story of two French climbers and BASE jumpers who follow in the footsteps pioneer jumpers from the early 1990’s and jump from Nameless Tower in Pakistan (6200m).  Archive footage of the first expedition is mixed into the movie and shows how far the equipment and film technology has come.  The helmet cams on the original jump are huge, and the dayglow self-made flying suits are not a good look either.  The final jump footage at the end of the film is an incredible flyers view of the Karakoram glaciers rushing towards you.

The programme ended with some proximity flying, that’s paragliding close to the ground ... and whatever is on the ground, such as cyclists and moving vehicles.  Jean Baptiste Chandelier showed off his skills in a fun-filled 4 minutes of low-flying, ground skimming comic artistry in the film ‘No Way’. 

To see the remaining dates for the 2024 UK and Ireland programme , and also early dates for new 2025 see https://www.banff-uk.com 

For tours and dates in other countries see https://www.banffcentre.ca/banffmountainfestival/tour