Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival

Get off the beaten path and explore the edge of believable with captivating stories from the 48th Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival.

Stand on the highest peaks, ski the steepest slopes, and be a part of the gripping adventures waiting for you in this year’s Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour. From exploring remote landscapes to adrenaline-fueled action sports, films selected for the 2023/2024 World Tour are sure to captivate and amaze you.

Be moved. Be inspired. Don’t miss out. Reserve your tickets today.

 Paintbrush Film Program

Desert Wings
(2023, USA, 4 min)
     Filmmakers: Nathan McBride, NVisualMedia
     Advisory: Coarse language
Paramotoring is a niche, largely undocumented, and little-known flying sport. This piece brings it to light in a rightfully epic way. Shot over 6 days, with multiple paramotor pilots, Desert Wings highlights some of the most dramatic desert landscapes in the American Southwest.

Soundscape – (Creative Excellence Award)
(2023, USA, 14 min)
      Filmmakers: Timmy O’Neill, Sarah Lee Steele, Well Travelled Collective
      Advisory: None
Soundscape features Erik Weihenmayer, a global adventure athlete and author who is fully blind, as he ascends a massive alpine rock face deep in the Sierra Nevada.

The Blackcountry Journal – (Best Film: Snow Sports)
(2023, USA, 10 min)
     Filmmakers: Mallory Duncan, Patrick Elmore, Uhuru Mountain Collective
     Advisory: None
A skier contemplates his connection to skiing and the mountains. As he hurries through the streets of L.A., his path takes a turn after bumping into a jazz musician who helps him discover the correlation between jazz and skiing—an expression of art, skiing, and black culture.

Georgia Astle: Flip The Switch
(2023, Canada, 3 min)
     Filmmakers: Scott Secco, Scott Secco Films
     Advisory: None
Watch Georgia Astle explore some of British Columbia’s most striking landscapes, on a search for terrain to push her riding, inspired by a rising tide of female freeriders around the world.

Canada Vertical (Tour Edit)
(2023, Canada, 35 min)
      Filmmaker: Laurent Poliquin, Nicolas Roulx
      Advisory: Coarse language
Follow a team of highly motivated Quebeckers on one of the longest wilderness expeditions ever documented. Stage one involves skiing in relentless polar conditions from Ellesmere Island to the Northwest Passage. Cue canoes for a 2,000 km journey across Nunavut and North West Territories until they get on bikes and pedal 4,000 km to Point Pelee in Ontario.

Leo & Chester – (Best Film: Mountain Culture)
(2022, Canada, 8 min)
     Filmmaker: Andrea Wing, Aline Mayerhoffer, MMGY Origin
     Advisory: None
Leo, a sought-after rock star with a promising career, turns his back on the industry to pursue a life on the land with a herd of buffalo.

Earthside
(2023, USA, 33 min)
     Filmmaker: Kaki Orr, Rob Wassmer, Aidan Haley, Christina Lustenberger, The North Face
     Advisory: Coarse language
In 2022, Hilaree Nelson, Emily Harrington, Christina Lustenberger, and Brette Harrington embarked on an expedition above the Arctic circle. What they found was a celebration of where they’ve been and of where they’re going – and the trip’s success was contingent not on what they skied but the time they had together.

Near The River
(2023, USA, 11 min)
     Filmmakers: Darby McAdams, Ashley Peel, Rush Sturges, McAdams Films
     Advisory: None
In the tourism town of Livingstone, Zambia, a group of local men who make their living portering kayaks aspire to become safety kayakers on the Zambezi River. The proposed Batoka Gorge Hydroelectric Scheme threatens to flood the famous rapids of the Zambezi and eliminate river related jobs.

El Gavilán
(2022, USA, 20 min)
     Filmmakers: Bronwyn Hodgins, Savannah Cummins, Savy Media
     Advisory: None
Rising out of the arid Mexican desert lies a 900 ft ship’s prow of elegant limestone sporting a 9-pitch 5.13 established in the 90s by Jeff Jackson. Shrouded in mysticism, the bolts rusted and the holds collecting dust until a couple of young gals from Canada decided to give it a try.