Banff festival still the pinnacle for filmmakers tackling world’s peaks
There a Spanish film about a Basque painter drawing inspiration from the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago near the North Pole. There’s a German film about a French paraglider exploring the Karakoram mountains of Pakistan. There’s an Austrian film about Nigerian BMX riders. Yet another Spanish film tells the story of a reindeer herder from the Dukha tribe in Mongolia.
If there is a theme to this year’s Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival, it’s that the celebration of mountain culture is an increasingly borderless, global and diverse phenomenon.
“We are seeing different types of people represented on screen,” says festival director Joanna Croston. “There’s more people of colour. Indigenous stories are being told as well — not just Canadian Indigenous, but international Indigenous as well. It’s exciting for us to have a different type of narrative other than the colonial, white narrative that would have been representative of the ’50s and large nations going to conquer peaks. That has changed a lot.”
The festival does not date back to the 1950s, but it is celebrating its 44th year. That makes it the second-oldest mountain film festival in the world, behind only the 67-year-old Trento Film Festival in Italy. The festival, which runs until Nov. 3, will screen 100 films from 19 countries. More than 100 filmmakers will be visiting from around the world.
All films are finalists, up for 10 prizes that are divided into subgenres.
“It may be little known to Calgarians and also to people in the Bow Valley just how prestigious the Banff festival is and how it is held in high regard across the planet,” says Croston. “For a lot of filmmakers, it’s a life dream recognized to be on our stage and accept an award, but also just to have their films screened here. The competition is really competitive.”
In fact, there were 450 entries this year for the festival. As with all filmmaking, the boost in technology has democratized mountain films. It’s no longer solely the domain of established filmmakers with access to big budgets. Films range from being a few minutes to feature length and are mostly non-fiction. But they are still judged on narrative, character development and the technical skills of the filmmaker. Increasingly, entries have an environmental theme. Skiing and other mountain sports are still big topics.
But there is also a common thread that links many of the hundreds of films that enter the competition.
“The idea of the indomitable human spirit is always a big theme for us,” Croston says. “People overcoming obstacles; those may be life obstacles or they may be physical mountains. That’s always a prevalent theme and it’s never really gone away. It was probably in the first festival we held and it’s still around. I think people are looking for an escape from their everyday lives.”
The festival is expected to attract 20,000 people from around the globe. For the last 25 years, a version of each year’s lineup travels to different countries. The festival now goes to 43 countries, holds 1,100 screenings and attracts 500,000 spectators. The first stop is in Great Falls, Mont., a week after the Banff festival ends.
“When we get visitors from other nations visiting Banff, a lot of the temporary workers who come to town for the ski season, for example, they will have heard of Banff through the world tour we offer,” says Croston. “In some cases, they don’t even know it’s a town. They think Banff is an acronym because we’ve got this double-f on the back of our name, they think it sounds for film festival.”