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Banff Mountain Film Festival


iluka

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In B-ham I thought the selection was great. Those Norwegian Kite skiers looked like they were having a blast.

 

I could have done without Dean Potter's cliched cosmic rambling, but his climbing footage was inspiring too.

 

It's quite a stretch calling the B.C. Mtn Bike course a "trail" but watching that guy was amazing!

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Hey Andy, good to see you again! We have to get out some time.

 

It wasn't the best show in Seattle but it was still fun. My fav was the Old Man of Hoy, I guess the visual part wasn't fantastic, but I liked the poem a lot.

 

They didn't really have either a good environmental or cultural film by the usual standards (not sure how the animated bit was winner for "mountain environment"). There was a lot more focus on basejumping/snowkiting/sking/biking/dws that was about projecting things or showing a whole lot of short bits of action from different angles or with tons of time to set up camera shots. I really missed the long climb/epic journey/wilderness bits they have had before.

 

I also saw the Sharma bit (which I actually liked) at the Reel Rock Tour and the mtn. biking bit somewhere before too. Oh well, still a fun evening once I managed to get in. :-)

 

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Saw it in Seattle last night. Really lame. Most disappointing in 8 I have seen.

 

I saw King Lines so the best new one IMO was Trial and Error. Worst was 20 Seconds of Joy. Who the hell allowed 60 minutes of the show to be devoted to a selfish, self-dramatizing wealthy person in a film festival supposedly devoted to mountain sports? It was boring, off-putting, and the wrap-up change-of-heart so predictably contrived a film school student would have gotten a D for it.

 

I encouraged two people to attend who have never been to a Banff festival and boy was I embarrassed. Had to apologize. Tried to make them believe it was an off year but got no traction. They won't be back next year.

 

I hope the Banff people aren't trending to a new art school/film school urban gaper genre. I want mountain sports served up hot, fast, and spicy. This years was bad greasy fast food with no meat.

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There was a definite shortage of either humor or serious adventure among the Bham selections. The Sharma and Potter profiles had some cool climbing but both were pretty staged.

 

My favorite was the Black-eyed-snakes XC ski film. Had the goofy seat-of-the pants feel that was generally missing.

 

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Yeah, the Skiing with the Snakes was nice, those guys laughed a lot, and I like that grimy blues based rock too.

 

Potter was irritating. He was blathering on about what he'd learned, but it looked to me like mostly he learned to use tick marks. They were glaringly obvious on the red sandstone, a total choreography mapped out, you could predict each exact jam, right on down to which hand, just by interpreting the white lines next to the red crack. I first noticed it on the free solo of Separate Reality. Buncha staged bullshit for the camera.

 

I realized the base jumping bit is more about boldness and some basic aerial moves, but the skill level can't compare to the control and balance that trials rider showcased.

 

Olympia ran a two night program, different films each night. What I'd really like is to go to the festival in Banff and get the week of full immersion. Lots of what they show on the road tour are excerpts from longer films. Anyone ever been?

 

Oh, the last thing they showed in Oly was a short called "Great Day for Climbing" which was both funny and cheesy. I was surprised I didn't know any of those folks in it, there where a maybe 8 climbers from Seattle in the 45 to 55 age bracket, and looked like it had been shot at Exit 38 (on Dwayner's BLT crag) and maybe some at Index.

Edited by Off_White
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What I'd really like is to go to the festival in Banff and get the week of full immersion. Lots of what they show on the road tour are excerpts from longer films. Anyone ever been?

 

I went a couple times and thought it was great the first year, a lot of sitting in one spot watching movies. The second year was the start of the trend with a lot of non-climbing related films, many by National Geographic. While they were good movies and had a sense of adventure -- one of the winners was about the big African Transect project to walk through and document the wilderness jungle in Congo and Uganda (I think) -- but the film didn't belong at the Mountain Fest.

 

I went to see films for a couple more years when they came to Seattle, but the trend continued and I gave up on the Banff Mountain Fest...

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I think the Radical Reels version of the tour is much better for the adrenaline seekers out there. Banff hlas definitely switched to providing most of those films off the main circuit and into the Radical Reels circuit. Check out this years Radical Reels trailer

 

Edited by ryland_moore
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