Media Release
For immediate
release
October 13, 2005
2005 Banff Mountain Film Festival finalists showcase the best in adrenaline sports, adventure, and environment
Banff Mountain Film Festival
October 27 to November 6
The Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta, Canada
Box Office: 762-6301 or 1-800-413-8368
On March 1, 2004, French mountaineers Patrick Bérhault and Phillippe
Magnin embarked on the biggest climbing challenge of their lives, an
expedition to climb all 82 of the Alpine peaks above 4,000 metres in 82
days. For Bérhault, who had logged a handful of first ascents, been to the
peak of Everest, and climbed big walls from Slovenia to the French
Mediterranean, it was the latest in a lifetime of exhilarating adventures.
On the 65th day, Bérhault fell to his death from a cornice on the Dom.
On Saturday, November 5, audiences at the 2005 Banff Mountain Film Festival
will see the North American premiere of Sur le fil des 4000, which tells Bérhault’s story as a climber known for his purist and visionary approach,
his final challenge, and his tragic end. It’s one of many film finalists at
this year’s Festival that chronicle the passions and obsessions of
mountaineers, endurance and extreme athletes, and environmental and cultural
advocates around the world.
The 56 films that will screen at the Festival, between October 27 and
November 6 at The Banff Centre, were chosen from more than 300 entries from
around the world, and they all share themes of endurance, passion,
discovery, and the sheer exhilaration of human achievement in spectacular
places.
Off Road to Athens follows the personal stories of eight professional
mountain bikers with hopes of making the 2004 Olympic team – the competition
takes them from Ecuador to Scotland to Canada, and ends with an
unpredictable finish. Canmore, Alberta filmmakers Pat and Baiba Morrow
return to the Festival with The Magic Mountain, the inspirational story of
indefatigable educator and public health advocate Cynthia Hunt as she works
in hardship conditions in the northwest Indian region of Ladakh. The life of
Anatoli Boukreev is told in Unconquerable Summit, the story of a mountaineer
whose achievements were overshadowed in the aftermath of the infamous 1996
Everest expedition, shortly before his death in an avalanche on Annapurna in
late 1997.
In the Canadian production What Remains of Us, filmmakers Francois Prevost
and Hugo Latulippe followed a young Tibetan woman, Kalsang Dolma, as she
smuggled a videotaped message from the Dalai Lama into Tibet and played it
for the citizens there now living under Chinese rule. For some of the
elderly Tibetans, it was the first time they had seen the Dalai Lama since
his exile in 1959, and the result of the film is a message of hope, sadness,
and remarkable resilience. Because many of the film’s subjects risked their
freedom by appearing onscreen in the film, security guards will be at the
screening on Saturday, October 29, to ensure that no recording devices of
any kind are taken into the theatre. This includes cell phones.
And a few of the year’s most popular films have also made it onto the
finalists’ list. On Saturday, October 29, catch March of the Penguins, one
of the summer’s top-rated films in any genre - the story of the emperor
penguins’ harsh annual trek across the frozen ice shelf of Antarctica. The
film is followed up a week later with a screening of the “making of”
documentary, Of Penguins and Men, on Friday, November 4. It goes behind the
scenes to capture the patience and passion of director Luc Jacquet and his
crew during nine grueling months of filming.
Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog’s stunning documentary about the life and death
of amateur grizzly biologist Timothy Treadwell, will open the Festival on
October 27. An outspoken advocate for the bears he lived with in Alaska’s
Katmai National Park, Treadwell was killed with his girlfriend Amie Huguenard by one of “his” bears in the fall of 2003.
On the lighter side, star climbers, from Chris Sharma (in The Ozarks) to the
world’s nimblest canine, Biscuit (in Rebels with Paws) to 10-year-old phenom
Cicada Jenerik (in Bug Out) are on screen in a world-class showcase of skill
and daring. Filmmakers Peter Mortimer and Timmy O’Neill will be in Banff to
introduce all five segments of their latest chronicle of climbing antics,
Return2Sender. Catch The Tangerine Dream - the raw and raggedy origins of
the outlaw ski and snowboard stars of Teton Gravity Research as they trek
through Alaska, the western U.S. and India in an orange truck.
The Festival will also world premiere Flying Downhill: The Art of Bode, on
November 4, chronicling downhill ski champ Bode Miller’s free-spirit early
life in New Hampshire, and his rocket rise through the ranks of competitive
downhill in pursuit of Olympic gold. The film is the cornerstone of the
popular Snow Show evening devoted to all things downhill.
Banff Mountain Film Festival screenings run October 27 to November 6 at The
Banff Centre and include Feature-length Film weekend October 29 and 30,
Radical Reels (a collection of high-adrenaline sports films) November 1, and
the main Festival program November 4 to 6. An international jury will
announce the Best of the Festival awards and most of the winners will be
screened (time allowing) on Sunday evening, November 6.
For tickets to the 2005 Banff Mountain Film Festival, call The Banff Centre
Box Office at 403-762-6301 or 1-800-413-8368, or online at
https://secure.banffcentre.ca/mc/2005/festival/.
For a complete list of finalists for the 2005 Banff Mountain Film Festival:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/mountainculture/2005/festivals/film/finalists/
Images from select films from the 2005 Banff Mountain Film Festival:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/mountainculture/media/images/
Sponsors:
The 30th annual Banff Mountain Film Festival is presented by National
Geographic and Dunham, sponsored by Patagonia, MSR – Mountain Safety
Research, Deuter, OR – Outdoor Research, Timex Expedition, and Polartec,
with assistance from Air Canada, Lake Louise Mountain Resort, Petzl, Nokia,
Mountain Equipment Co-op, CBC – Radio Canada, and The Calgary Herald.
Media Contact
Jill Sawyer
Media and Communications Officer, The Banff Centre
403.762.6475
