Wednesday — January 28, 2004

Banff Film Festival dances through mountain playgrounds

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By MEGAN THOMAS
Express Staff Writer

For 28 years the Banff Mountain Film festival has thrilled mountain enthusiasts with cutting edge adventures, extreme athletic feats, dynamic outdoor environments and remote cultural curiosities. Mountain playgrounds from the Alps to the Himalayas inspire the festival held annually in Alberta, Canada.

From the film "Wehyakin," which will be shown Sunday, Feb. 1, during the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour at the nexStage Theatre in Ketchum. Photo courtesy Banff Mountain Festivals

The festival kicks off the annual Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour with stops in over 20 countries. The tour includes showings from the edge of the Chilean Patagonia to Cape Town, South Africa. Fortunately, the tour includes two evenings at Ketchum’s nexStage Theatre, Saturday, Jan. 31, and Sunday, Feb. 1, at 7p.m.

This year Ketchum hosts 13 of Banff’s finest films. Each evening the tour features films specially selected for the Wood River Valley audience. The collection traces adventures, cultures and landscapes in North American to the mountains of Asia, Europe and the former Soviet Union. The collection hails from filmmakers of the United States, Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland and United Kingdom. All are in tune with local passions for whitewater, mountain biking, climbing, skiing and paragliding.

This year a portion of the proceeds will be donated by the Sun Valley Ski Patrol to the Wood River Hospice, the Sun Valley Adaptive Sports Program and the Monica Wernig Fund.

The festival begins Saturday night with the 2003 Grand Prize Winner "The Other Final." This cultural look into athletics delves into the not so famous soccer match held between two national teams ranked at the bottom of international soccer. Bhutan and Montserrat met to play in Thimphu at the same time Germany and Brazil battled in the World Cup final held in Japan. The film follows the training, travel and stadium play of the two national teams.

Themes of athletic passion continue with "Janica Kostelic," the story of a war torn penniless Yugoslavian family of skiers. The family trained for the Salt Lake City Olympics on the closed backcountry slopes of the Austrian Alps, while living out of the family car and sleeping outside.

"Eiger North Face: In the Footsteps of its First Climbers" takes the audience up the notorious North Face with mountaineers Stephan Siegrist and Michal Pitelka. The climbers embrace the ascent outfitted with the equipment similar to the first ascent party in 1938. The film earned the 2003 award for Best Film on Climbing.

Sunday’s films continue to explore alpine curiosities, centering on stories of Tibetan cultural transition, whitewater adrenaline and man and birds flying together.

"A Man Called Nomad" shares in the dilemmas facing Choegatar, a Tibetan nomad, struggling with the traditional nomadic life and imposition of the modern world. The festival granted the film the Best Film on Mountain Culture.

Dance through the river with the epic whitewater story of "Wehyakin." This adrenaline fueled kayaking narrative navigates the river through the personalities of its key paddlers. Park City boys Brandon Knapp, Brad Ludden, Ben Selznick and Nick Turner, along with others, boat the waters of Iceland, Mexico and Norway.

Finally, "Parahawking" traces the intriguing chance meeting of two paragliders and a falconer from England in the shadows of the Himalayas. The three train birds of prey to fly with paragliders.

The evenings offer these and other global adventures.

Advance tickets are available at Chapter One Bookstore in Ketchum.

 

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