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Banff Mountain Film Festival and the K2 anniversary
Oct 29, 2004 17: 30 EST
The annual Banff film festival is kicking off Saturday in Alberta, Canada with great films, seminars and panel discussions about adventure filmmaking. There are guest speakers, lunch-hour seminars, an adventure trade show, an art & craft sale, a book fair and a climbing wall. You'll meet with other climbers, find out what going on in the adventure world, and enjoy great mountain films.
And this year's Guest Stars are:
Special guest are one of the main attractions on Banff Festival. This year they are Alex Huber, Carlos Buhler, George Lowe and Chris Jones, and 1924 K2 veterans Charles Houston, Robert Marshall, and John Roskelley, among others.
K2 in focus
This year, K2 is in focus - significantly Pete Schoening 77, who died in bone cancer this September, at his home in Kenmore. At his side were several climbers, including Tom Hornbein.
August 10, 1953. Pete was involved in a dramatic belay on K2. The climbers had been pinned down for ten days in a storm and had decided they would get off K2 together or not at all. Team member Art Gilkey developed an altitude-induced blood clot and could no longer walk. As the climbers tried to bring him down, another climber, George Bell, slipped and pulled the other climbers down a 60-degree slope. With a rope belayed around his hip, Pete held onto a wooden ice ax jammed behind a rock. He stopped the slide of the other five climbers and somehow held onto Gilkey at the same time. The incident is since dubbed "the belay."
Brotherhood of the Rope
"Brotherhood of the Rope" recalls this dramatic climb. The film, by Charles Houston (one of the climbers in the 1953 belay), will premiere at the Festival on Saturday, November 6. The film is just one out of 58 films that will screen at the Festival between October 30 and November 7. The finalists were chosen from more than 330 entries and 46 countries.
Two brand new programs
The festival includes a Feature-length Film weekend October 30-31, Radical Reels (a collection of high-adrenaline sports films) November 2, and the main Festival program November 5 -7. There are also two brand new programs: An evening of environmental films, "Earth in Focus", November 1, and "The Snow Show" November 5, a night of steep-and-deep ski films. An international jury will announce the Best of the Festival awards on Sunday evening, November 7.
A mountain of books
Simultaneously, the Banff Mountain Book Festival "brings the spirit of outdoor adventure and the tradition of mountain literature to Banff every year, uniting writers, publishers, editors, photographers and, of course, readers. 137 books from eight countries were entered in the 11th annual Banff Mountain Book Festival competition. The winners in the seven categories settled by the festival will be announced on November 4. Several of this year's finalist authors will be featured guests at the book festival, November 3-5, at The Banff Centre.
Delivering Banff
Just in case you don't make it on time to Canada; the best films from the festival will go on tour immediately after the festival. Beginning early November, the tour begins in North America and then continues overseas. On the 2003/2004 Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, over 150,000 people in 210 locations attended over 335 screenings throughout 21 countries.
The Banff Mountain Film Festival is an international competition featuring the world's best films and videos on mountain subjects. It is held annually at the beginning of November in Banff, Alberta. The Festival began in 1976. The year 2004 marks the 29th anniversary.
Schedule:
Oct 30-31 Sat-Sun Feature-Length Films Weekend
Nov 5-7 Fri-Sun Regular programming Weekend
Nov 7 Sun evening jury announces the Best of the Festival award winners.
An international film festival jury chooses the best films and awards prizes in eight categories: Grand Prize, Climbing, Mountain Sports, Mountain Environment, Mountain Culture, Short Mountain Film and Feature-Length Mountain Fiction. Audience members decide the winner of the People's Choice Award.
Image of Carlos Buhler on Mt. Edith Cavell, copyright Crista-Lee Mitchell, courtesy Banff Mountain Festivals
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