| 064 | Banff Mtn Film Festival | 2009-04-01 |
Monday night we went to the Banff Mountain Film Festival 2008/2009 World Tour. A local store, Blue Ridge Mountain Sports, sponsored the event for Nashville. I am not a good judge of numbers but the auditorium at Montgomery Bell Academy seemed to be full, about 400 to 500 people. It’s great to see that many folks in Nashville supporting the event.
As a review... I enjoy the shorter (under fifteen minutes) films better than the long full featured films. Fortunately we only had to endure one long film that for the second year in a row it was about base jumping. I am not sure but one of the stars was in the film from last year. The film did have a great section about one of the jumpers visiting a Chinese school, but hardly good enough to salvage the whole movie. Basically the movie, (Journey to the Center) was a lot of talking and not much action!
Films that we liked (a group of 5 of us - in no way movie critics but we have watched a few movies) were:
The Red Helmet - a great short film about a boy finding courage in a red helmet that he found.
The Cable Car - a cartoon of a man riding in a cable car who fixes everything with masking tape (not duct tape, at least it didn’t look like duct tape).
The Sharp End - two excellent climbing videos were shown from the full length video. The film from the Czech Republic was especially good as it also showed us a bit of their climbing culture.
The Unbearable Lightness of Skiing - another great skiing film from Teton Gravity.
The Crux - was our favorite film. It was a bike stunt movie showcasing Ryan Leech. The tricks he performed were phenomenal - unbelievable.
Overall, it was a great evening - good films shared with good friends, all supporting the mountain culture. I can’t wait until next year.