Banff Mountain Movie Festival

Banff is more than just the sound of Nightcrawler. It’s also a small town in the Canadian Rockies that hosts one of the world’s best-known mountain film festivals every year. Fortunately, you don’t have to travel quite that far to experience it. Yesterday evening, a selection of the festival’s highlights found its way to the venerable Draken cinema in Gothenburg.

I’ve always had a soft spot for short adventure films. Without the luxury of two or three hours, they have to get straight to the point. If the filmmakers manage to pour enough heart into those few precious minutes, the result can be far more memorable than the biggest Hollywood production.

Budget, after all, isn’t everything. Take the old IMAX film about Everest. It had spectacular photography, unlimited resources and, by sheer coincidence, a front-row seat to the tragic 1996 disaster on the mountain. Yet despite all that, it somehow left me strangely unmoved.

That’s the difference between documenting an adventure and telling a story. The Banff films belong firmly in the latter category. They remind you that the best outdoor films are rarely about summits or statistics. They’re about curiosity, fear, stubbornness and the wonderfully irrational urge to keep climbing, paddling or skiing long after common sense has suggested turning around.

Banff Mountain Movie Festival scene at Draken.

This years edition of Banff mountain movie festival brought the following films.

• “The Ultimate Ride” features Steve Fisher and his crazy pals who set out to go kayaking in mighty Zambezi River south of the Victoria Falls. Felt like a mix between Ty Pennington and Jackass.
• “A Life Ascending” followes ski guide Ruedi Beglinger, who has chosen a life outside the ordinary. He lives isolated in his self-built cottage on a remote glacier in the Selkirk Mountains, reachable only by helicopter. Quite touching.
• “Into Darkness” by John Waller follows three men who explore an underworld cave in the middle of nowhere. I was reminded of my cave descent in New Zealand, but these guys are the real deal. Not recommended if you suffer from claustrophobia.
• “Last Paradise” is a shortened cut of a documentary following the emerge of extreme sports. We see old footage where a bunch of mavericks invent the snowboard, enhance the design of regular surfboards, explore remote glaciers in New Zealand and so on.
• “The Swiss Machine” is about Ueli Steck, a crazy alpinist who speed-climb steep faces.
• The evening ended with one of my favorite short films regarding traveling: “The Longest Way” by Christoph Rehage, who walked across China from Beijing to Urumqi, while growing an insane beard. I mentioned it last year in The bearded journey and the film is available on YouTube.

If you get a chance to see them, they are well worth a view.