Archive | Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival RSS feed for this section

Munich to Banff and back

by on April 1, 2013 in Arts, Banff, Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival, Festivals, Film & Media, General

Jarem Frye (left) and Craig DeMartino of the film The Gimp Monkeys, on stage at the Munich screening of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour with screening host Caren Alt.

Jarem Frye (left) and Craig DeMartino of the film The Gimp Monkeys, on stage at the recent Munich screening of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, with screening host Caren Alt.

As a freelance sports journalist, I attended the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour for many years in my hometown of Munich, Germany, and then last October I had the opportunity to experience the Festival live. From the 80 films shown there I’ve seen about 50, reporting on them for German newspapers and magazines. In the morning hours, before the public screenings, I made trips and walks in and around Banff, went to the Sulphur Mountain gondola, hiked up Tunnel Mountain, had a nice swim at the Hot Springs, a fabulous cake at the Fairmont Banff Springs, and worked on my blogs in the Maclab Bistro (they have great double espresso and breakfast there).

I particularly enjoyed the unique atmosphere at the Festival: discussions with enthusiastic visitors, the filmmakers, the journalists, the athletes themselves, and the jury. I interviewed mountaineer Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner in Banff – though I knew her before from Germany – and we met like old friends on a fun holiday together. The interview I did with Gerlinde and her husband Ralf Dujmovits in Banff was really special, very intense and honest. I also met Swiss filmmaker Hans Urs Bachmann, who won a prize with his film 1st Afghan Ski Challenge and back in Germany, I was able to place a great article about his film in Suddeutsche Zeitung, one of the largest newspapers in Germany.

Continue Reading →

Comments { 0 }

Avalanche Awareness Night: Summoning the young and the reckless

by on January 18, 2013 in Arts, Banff, Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival, Community connection, Events, Festivals, Film & Media, General

Avalanche photo

Taken at last year’s Avalanche Awareness Night, Felix Camire (left), demonstrating Backcountry Access’s Avalanche Airbag. Photo: Margo Klimowicz.

The romantic poets and painters of the 19th century were always going on about the sublimity of the Alps. But for these cautious artists, the marvels of mountains are best appreciated when engaged with imaginatively. Here in Banff however, scores of unconvinced mountaineers pile in each year to turn their sick backcountry fantasies into reality. But when your mountain education consists only of ski porn – or more curiously, romantic poetry – you might want to rethink that weekend climb, or ski, up the Icefields Parkway.

In 1998, the Canadian Avalanche Centre approached the Banff Mountain Film Festival about hosting an avalanche awareness event, where the need for education on the subject is especially acute among young people who, wouldn’t you believe it, are the group most susceptible to avalanche accidents. Luring kids to the event with advertisements of outdoor adventure films, the event also included presentations and demonstrations by snow safety experts. Fast forward fifteen years, and Avalanche Awareness Night’s a popular annual Bow Valley event. This year’s speakers include members of the Lake Louise Avalanche Control Team and Banff Park Wardens. The even will also screen films from the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival World Tour, hand out fabulous door prizes, and offer a trade show, featuring the latest avalanche information and equipment.

Whether you’re among the young and the reckless seeking out the gnarly backcountry pow, or a resident poet with plans of dallying hikes, if you’re venturing into the mountains this year avalanche safety education should be a priority. The Banff Centre’s Avalanche Awareness Night offers a fun primer on the subject, and a prelude to avalanche training certificate courses.

If you can’t make it the event this Sunday you can still follow along via our live twitter feed @banffcentre #AvalancheSafety. In the meantime, check out this podcast from last year’s avy night to get you in the mood.

Avalanche Awareness Night is presented in partnership with the Canadian Avalanche Centre, Canadian Pacific, and Parks Canada.

Comments { 0 }

Wild Lives: Leanne Allison’s flim journey

by on January 17, 2013 in Arts, Banff, Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival, Community connection, Festivals, Film & Media, General

All images courtesy of Banff National Park’s remote camera wildlife monitoring and Leanne Allison.

All images courtesy of Banff National Park’s remote camera wildlife monitoring and Leanne Allison.

Art and wildlife research may seem worlds removed, but Alberta filmmaker Leanne Allison has made a career of bridging the gap between the two. In her award-winning documentaries, Being Caribou and Bear 71, and in her most recent project, Highway Wilding, Allison uses the art of filmmaking to engage audiences in the lives of wild animals and to explore the challenges faced by some of Canada’s most endangered species.

In Being Caribou (National Film Board (NFB), 2004) Allison and her husband, Karsten Heuer, embark on a five-month 1,500-kmlong trek to follow the migration of the Porcupine Caribou Herd to their calving grounds in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Bear 71 (NFB, 2012) uses a web-based interactive documentary format to tell the story of an ill-fated grizzly living in the Bow Valley, the most developed place in the world where grizzly bears still exist. And, now on the road with the Centre’s Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, Highway Wilding (2012) examines how Banff National Park’s highway wildlife crossing structures save the lives of both animals and human beings.

Leanne Allison talked to Inspired about using the art of filmmaking to convey what it means to be wild.

Why did you choose to use film to tell wildlife stories?
The best way to reach a wide audience is through film. I first realized this when I was working with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation. We put out a report about a wolf study, and we accompanied it with some incredible B-roll footage of wolves howling. That night the B-roll was on CBC TV’s The National and there was Peter Mansbridge talking about this dry, boring report that came out of this pretty obscure place in central B.C. That’s when the light bulb went on for me. That experience led me to film our Being Caribou journey. My minimum objective was to come away with B-roll to publicize the plight of the Porcupine herd, and my dream was to come away with a documentary.

Human beings are a visual species, we relate to images, and to stories told through images. If it is done well, you can transport people to a different world and a different place. You can allow the audience to lose themselves, and to experience the world as the animals do.  Continue Reading →

Comments { 0 }

One tree at a time: Charlotte Gill on how words and trees are similar

by on December 27, 2012 in Arts, Banff, Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival, Events, Festivals, Film & Media, General, Literary Arts, Literary Journalism, Writing with Style

 Eating Dirt: Charlotte Gill

From tree planter to creative writer to literary mentor – Charlotte Gill has not followed a conventional career path. The British Columbia author’s 1988 decision to trade her urban undergraduate lifestyle for a summer spent planting trees in northern Ontario was a crucial turning point in her life. It led to 17 years work as a seasonal tree planter and, ultimately, to a best-selling book. It also, curiously, led to The Banff Centre.

Gill’s Eating Dirt – a personal exploration of both the lived experience and the science of tree planting – won the 2012 BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and the CBA Libris Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award. Gill sat down with Inspired to talk about her journey from the clear cut to the printed page.

What came first, tree planting or writing?
I am sometimes described as a tree planter turned writer, but more accurately those two things mutually evolved. I began tree planting when I was 19, and I also began writing when I was 19. My first book [Ladykiller] was published in 2005 when I was well into my planting career, so in a way I feel that tree planting was an excellent psychic training ground for me as a writer. As a tree planter, you spend a lot of hours by yourself trying to accomplish something large that is composed of a series of very tiny pieces. In a way, that is not dissimilar to writing a book – one word at a time, one sentence at a time. Continue Reading →

Comments { 0 }

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner followed passion to summit all 8,000-metre peaks

by on December 7, 2012 in Arts, Banff, Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival, Festivals, Film & Media, General, Podcasts

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner speaks at the 2012 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival. Photo: Kim Williams.

The Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival was an inspiring 10 days, but it left a question in the back of my mind that seems to linger after each Festival.

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner is a mountaineer, adventurer, and a remarkable athlete. She summited her first 8,000-metre peak at the age of 23. In Austria, she worked as a nurse until about 10 years ago when she decided to pursue mountaineering full-time. By August of last year, she had become the second woman to climb all fourteen 8,000-ers, and the first woman to do so without supplementary oxygen or high altitude porters.

But as I was preparing for my interview with her, I came across many articles mentioning tragic events that took place during her attempt to summit all of the 8,000-ers. No fault of Kaltenbrunner — she is very kind and undramatic — but these stories seem to be essential to sharing the tales of Everest and K2.

What is it about the narrative of mountaineering that brings out tragedy? Or even encourages it? It’s a thought with no answer, just an observation.

As I was asking Kaltenbrunner about her relationship with risk and what keeps her climbing, it was clear that when someone is finishing the amazing feat of stepping on the world’s highest peaks, stories about falls and avalanches find their way in. This clip begins with Kaltenbrunner talking about her sixth summit attempt at K2, and the impact of the tragic event on a bottleneck. Her seventh attempt was successful.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

To hear the full piece, check out Podcast 12 on our Soundcloud page.

Comments { 0 }

Wade Davis: The Mountain and the Fox

by on November 23, 2012 in Arts, Banff, Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival, Events, Festivals, General, Literary Arts, Visiting Artists

Wade Davis talks about his book, Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest, before a sold-out crowd at the 2012 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival.

The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing. Wade Davis is some kind of many headed mutant fox. The celebrated anthropologist, explorer, writer, and photographer touched down in Banff earlier this month for the Mountain Film and Book Festival. Fresh off a flight from Orlando and between engagements in Salt Lake City and Australia, he was able to give us some time for a quick interview.

Davis has been involved with The Banff Centre for many years in the breadth of capacities one would expect from an exploring fox.  A regular visitor to the Festival, this year he was speaking about his new book, Into The Silence: The Great War, Mallory, And The Conquest Of Everest.

We spoke to Davis about his new book, how Indigenous cultures are represented in media, and what it means to be an Explorer in Residence for National Geographic. The interview was conducted by Camara Miller with sound design by Chris Wood.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Comments { 0 }