By Megan Warren for ArtSpring
After selling out two years in a row, the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival is returning to ArtSpring for its 2024/25 World Tour. This year, ArtSpring is doubling the adventure with two separate screening dates, each featuring a completely different roster of seven life-affirming films set against wild landscapes so alive as to be characters themselves.
On Friday, Oct. 10 at 7 p.m., the Quartzite program will take the screen.
This truly international suite of films starts and ends in Switzerland, but takes viewers to Jamaica, Antarctica, Zimbabwe, Sweden and the Peruvian Andes along the way. Its thematic range is just as wide, from Sliding’s exhilarating day in the life of a skeleton slider in the Alps to The Last Observers’ familial and loving glimpse into the lives of Sweden’s last manual weather observers.
On Saturday, Oct. 11 at 2 p.m., the Basalt program will be screened as a matinee. Among Basalt’s titles are two award-winners which explore very different ways of immersing oneself in the natural world.
A former window salesman delves into the lives of hummingbirds in the wilds of his urban backyard in The Bird in My Backyard, while in Wild Days, four friends test their endurance, resourcefulness, and friendship during 50 days of self-sufficient adventure in the Denali massif.
Though most films within each program are wildly different from each other, many of them share a profoundly human through-line. The films invite viewers to witness the evolution of their subjects’ relationships–with themselves, their families, their communities, and the wild landscapes that challenge and guide them. With remarkable characters, stunning wilderness settings, daredevil adventurers, and, of course, hummingbirds, this year’s lineup truly has it all.
Born in 1976, the Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival takes place each fall in beautiful Banff, AB, before hitting the road for a year-long world tour. With stops in 45 countries across seven continents, it holds the title of the world’s largest adventure film tour.
Whether this will be your first or your 49th year in the audience, prepare to be transported and inspired. And if you find yourself heading straight to the mountains after the credits roll, consider the festival’s mission accomplished–and be sure to bring a camera.
Quartzite’s first offering is a 2024 Canadian short film called Anytime, set in the Lenzerheide Bike Park.
“Leave your preconceptions behind,” reads the program, “as these women prove they’re not just riding — they’re reigning.”
For full schedules visit artspring.ca.