Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour on Mar 1, 2023 | UCSB Arts & Lectures

Curated and hosted by Roman Baratiak, A&L Associate Director Emeritus

A Santa Barbara institution, the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour is a perennial fan favorite. Featuring the world’s best films and videos on mountain subjects, the tour awes viewers with thrills and grandeur captured in exotic locations the world over. The show’s wide variety of film subjects – from extreme sports to mountain culture and environment – will amaze audiences. An entirely different program of films screens each night.

Program, Wednesday, March 1:

Part 1  

COLORS OF MEXICO

(2021, 4 minutes)

Director: Kilian Bron, Pierre Henni; Production Company: Commencal

Film Synopsis: Discover Mexico and its magnificent mix of backdrops with Kilian Bron and his team.

ECO-HACK!

(2022, United States, 17 minutes)

Director: Josh Izenberg, Brett Marty; Producer: Brett Marty, Josh Izenberg; Production Company: Speculative Films

Film Synopsis: Biologist Tim Shields has watched desert tortoise populations in the Mojave Desert plummet since the 1990s. The latest threat? Ballooning populations of ravens, thanks to increased human activity in the desert. Tired of taking notes on a quiet catastrophe, Tim quits traditional observational biology in exchange for direct intervention.

WOOD HOOD

(2021, United States, 17 minutes)

Director: Alexander Cullen; Producer: Manny Almonte, Alexander Cullen, Andy Isaacson; Production Company: Resonant Pictures

Film Synopsis: DeVaughn is a 15-year-old kid from New York City who loves skateboarding and craves a "quiet place" to escape the chaos of his home, the city, and kids that steal from him. The film follows a weekend-long group camping trip, and as we weave between the city and the woods, a place that is unfamiliar and historically inaccessible to many, we witness the joy and growth that is possible when kids have an opportunity to find that "quiet place."

BALKAN EXPRESS

(2022, Germany, 40 minutes)

Director: Philipp Becker, Max Kroneck, Jochen Mesle, Johannes Müller; Producer: Philipp Becker; Production Company: El Flamingo GmbH

Film Synopsis: German mountaineers Max Kroneck and Jochen Mesle book a one-way train ticket from Munich to Thessaloniki – and start their 2500-kilometre journey back home by bike and ski. They explore the mountains of the Balkans, looking for the most beautiful ski runs and sharing good times with locals along the way.

Part 2

THE PROCESS

(2021, United Kingdom, 15 minutes)

Director: Matt Hardy, Matt Pycroft; Production Company: Coldhouse Collective

Film Synopsis: Tom Randall is a rock climber known for his commitment to training and the courageous and, at times, outrageous challenges he sets himself. This time, Tom has set his mind on becoming proficient and efficient in the sport of fell running and he has a madcap idea to try and complete the previously un-attempted Lakes Classic Rock Challenge and a Bob Graham link-up in 24 hours. That’s 15 classic Lakeland rock climbs, 42 summits, and 142 kilometres. What lengths is he willing to go to achieve his goal and when is enough, enough? Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than hanging on...

CLEAN MOUNTAINS

(2021, 19 minutes)

Director: Geertjan Lassche; Producer: Jos de Putter; Production Company: Dieptescherpte BV

Film Synopsis: During the pandemic there were no foreign climbers in the Himalaya, so a famous Sherpa family decides to climb Mount Everest to clean the garbage left behind by others – thus restoring the holiness of the mountain and calming the gods.

SHERI (TOUR EDIT)

(2022, United States, 19 minutes)

Director: James Q Martin; Producer:  Emily Doig; Production Company: Q Stories

Film Synopsis: Sheri Tingey’s 60-year career as a woman who has defied the odds by starting a company at age 50 that has revolutionized the outdoor industry. The film is a story about the hurdles she overcame to launch the company, about the ways she hid from view so that people would judge the boats, not her role in creating them. At this watershed moment of reckoning around equity and inclusion for the industry, Sheri’s life story will both warm audiences, and ask them to grapple with important questions about who belongs.

WALKING ON CLOUDS

(2021, Brazil, 6 minutes)

Director: Renan Kamizi; Producer: João Juchem; Production Company: GO Visuals

Film Synopsis: In the city of Praia Grande, Santa Catarina, Brazil, Rafael Bridi attempts the highest highline record in the world by setting his line above the clouds.

Major Local Sponsor: Justin Brooks Fisher Foundation

The Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour is presented by Rab, BUFF®, Banff & Lake Louise Tourism and sponsored by Lowe Alpine, Oboz Footwear, YETI Coolers, Kicking Horse Coffee, World Expeditions, The Lake Louise Ski Resort & Summer Gondola

Photo credit: Ashlee Hendy and Elizabeth Chong in Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park Australia @ Simon Carter.