Monday, March 19, 2012

Banff Mountain Film Fest

Banff Mountain Film Fest World Tour

Yes folks, that time has come and gone once again for the Banff Mountain Film Fest. For those of you unfamiliar, this is an international film fest that was started back in the 70s in Banff, Alberta. Each year about 300 short to long films focusing mainly on the great outdoors and crazy adventure sports are submitted, viewed and judged. Around 60 of the top are then viewed at the fest, then a few from those are chosen to hit the road and make the world tour to over 300 cities. For the past 4 years, Adam and I (well, me the past three), have been attending this event in Chicago, and every time we leave, we feel this great sense of inspiration to go climb a mountain, pop a tent, or just go hug a tree. The films are always beautifully done. 

This year, we decided to keep this part of our yearly routine as we found it coming to Paris (last week). Again, a great experience and an awesome event, but just a bit different than the previous years being in sweet home chicago. For one, everything was presented in French, and whoever the speaker was, he spoke the most jumbled French I've ever heard. Ah, and just when you're starting to feel confidence understanding the language, along comes this guy. I think I got about 10% of what he was trying to say : ( But fortunately, the films were all in English and had French subtitles, so that in itself was awesome practice. I felt better about myself when I could at least read most of the subtitles : )

Then there was the crowd. Let's just say compared to the earthier folks of chi city in their fleeces, KEENs and REI gear, most of then entire crowd looked like every other dressed-up Parisian. Yes, they'd probably all come straight from the office, but hell, so did all the chicagoans, ha. Despite the few differences, the evening was still a great time with some incredible views. See below for some clips.


Urban Skiiing (video):

The All.I.Can clip was definitely one of my faves and such a teaser. They only showed a snippet of the entire film including this video that had won the award for best feature film, best mountain film, best this best that, best, best, best.....I'm almost tempted to buy the DVD just to see the rest. So artfully done, fun soundtrack, and a fresh new look to film.



Slacklining- an obscure sport created from an obscure sport. 

Check out 'Sketchy Andy' as he proves he's either getting crazier or just more genius. I had no idea this sport was even becoming as extreme as it is. I thought slacklining was simply a bunch of climbers just hanging out walkin across some rope to kill time, build some strength....or similarly, what my brother brings for us to do on family vacations for us to kill time, ha. Guess it's time to step up our game.


Flying Sherpas: Hanuman Airlines 
You know, it's about time they made a film complimenting the sherpas who climb Everest. Especially these guys who came up with the idea to form 'Hanuman Airlines', the first 'airline' ever to fly over the mountain once they summited. The film follows the story of two Sherpa climbers/paragliders who decide to climb the mountain, then take the easy way down. Genius.


 C.A.R.C.A.    Canadian Avalanche Rescue Cat Association

Ok, This mockumentary about avalanche rescue cats was by far the most hilarious, but unfortunately, you can only see the intro on their website. Seeing that someone put so much time into the website made me believe it actually might be a real thing...had me fooled for a sec. 




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