Adventure in the spotlight at Banff Mountain Film Festival
You don’t have to be into extreme sports to enjoy the paragliders and mountain climbers featured at the Banff Mountain Film Festival
Wide appeal
So imagine my surprise when I found myself getting into the movies that make up the Banff Mountain Film Festival. To be honest, the title had me fooled: I thought I was going to see nice nature films about mountain climates, flora and fauna.
It quickly became apparent that this festival, though, wasn’t about discovering the forces of nature as much as about challenging the forces of nature. Californian Faith Dickey, who makes it her business to string narrow straps across mountaintops and then cross them on her bare feet, says in the film Wild Women that “people who don’t participate in those types of activities just think we’re crazy”.
After spending your evening at Banff, you might be hard-pressed to disagree with those people.
Take the aforementioned speed riding. This is an activity that combines paragliding – free flying around in a harness attached to a giant wing made of fabric – with skiing. Enthusiasts hurl themselves over the sides of snowy mountains and paraglide around on the winds, occasionally touching down on the snow to ski before the wind picks them back up and they go flying hundreds of metres further before touching down again. These are no ski slopes, mind you, this is pure wilderness.
You’ll also see a short film featuring a famous paraglider who sails over gorgeous southern countries, expertly controlling his height so he can whip his foot through your rooftop swimming pool or land – I kid you not – on a moving busload of tourists.
In a city near you
You can imagine that one need not be an extreme sportsperson in order to have a lot of fun with these short movies. “The most important thing about this festival is that people get inspired by the wonderful adventures, good stories and beautiful landscapes,” confirms Patrick Toby, who began organising the festival six years ago. “There are climbers and hikers who come but also just people who enjoy three hours of fantastic stories. After six years, I’m convinced: People are really intoxicated by this festival.”
People are really intoxicated by this festival
More and more people come every year, and Banff has expanded from its original home in Brussels to several other stops across Belgium, including Antwerp and Ghent. Toby, whose company Cap Mundo brings adventurers and explorers to give talks in Brussels and also sponsors the annual Ocean Film Festival, was once himself a paraglider. “I’m also a traveller. I’ve been across the Amazon, and I crossed India by motorcycle.”
When he discovered six years ago that the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Canada was accepting applications for cities to host its world tour, he applied to host it in Brussels. Each sponsor chooses a handful of films that screen at the original Banff that they want to show in their own cities. The whole festival takes place in one long evening. All the films are either segments from longer films or shorts in their own right.
Other highlights of the festival are The Ridge, featuring a man who takes the term “mountain bike” very, very seriously (pictured), and And Then We Swam, which is the one that will probably appeal most to the masses of the less adventuresome. British blokes James and Ben decide they are going to row across the Indian Ocean. Not only are James and Ben not remotely athletic, they have never rowed in their lives.
Aside from featuring the kind of everyman heroes audiences love to cheer for, And Then We Swam is amusing in a way the others are not. “A lot of people looked at us and genuinely thought there was no way that we could do it,” notes one of the men. “Because they know us.”
The title of the film provides a clue as to the ultimate outcome of the endeavour.
3-24 March, Across Belgium
WIN TICKETS!
We have several pairs of tickets to give away to the Banff Moutain Film Festival in Gent (16/3) and Antwerp (17/3). To win a pair, email [email protected] with "Banff" in the subject line by noon on Friday, 6 March. Note in the email in which city you'd like to see the festival. Winners will be notified the same day.
