We posted a few weeks ago about the Banff Film
Festival’s annual road trip in which they take the
very best outdoor/mountain films submitted to their annual competition, and trek them around the world for various
showings. This weekend the tour finally made it to my home town.
I have to admit, I wasn’t as impressed as
I have been in the past. It wasn’t a bad show, but the collection of short films usually leaves me inspired
and motivated and eager to really embrace life in the outdoors. It didn’t so much this year.
The
showing included the usual snowboarding/skiing selection which wasn’t as awe-inspiring as past efforts as well as
two rock climbing films which I found a little boring.
I was, however, impressed with a 7-minute film
called Balancing
Point, another about kayaking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and a very funny one about the thoughts that run
through your head while riding up a ski lift called Solilochairliftquist. The real crowd pleaser, which also
won the Best Film on Mountain Sports category, was Praszczur
(Grandpa). It was a little slow, but if you find it good fun to watch an 80 year-old Polish man dragged down a
mountainside before finally getting airborne with his paraglider, than this is the film for you. My personal
favorite, Hockey Night… in Ladakh, featured some out-of-shape Canadian diplomats who take on a
Himalayan hockey team located high in the mountains of northern India.
Overall I still highly recommend
checking out the Banff Film Festival tour when it arrives in
your home town. Different films are screened on different nights so I may not have caught the very best ones on the
night I went.