Media Release
For immediate release
November 28, 2006
2006/ 2007 Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour hits the road
The Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour has once again taken to the road. Immediately following the final film screenings of the 31st Banff Mountain Film Festival, audiences began packing into theatres to catch the 2006/2007 Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour. The tour brings films from the annual festival to outdoor and film enthusiasts in about 270 locations around the world.
Each local tour organizer selects films from a menu that covers a diverse range of sports, themes, and styles, allowing the program to be tailored to the particular location. This year’s collection includes films such as:
Asiemut, this year’s People’s Choice winner, which follows first-time filmmakers Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier on an 8000 kilometre cycling expedition across Asia. Pedaling from Mongolia to India, through Xinjiang, the Taklimakan Desert, and the high Tibetan plateau, they discover both a new part of the world and themselves.
The Best of Jo, a three minute stop-action Lego film, which features a coffee-addicted guy named Jo who is eager to try all the mountain sports available to him, such as climbing, skiing, and fishing. The Best of Jo was directed and produced by 12-year-old Logan Carlstrom, the youngest filmmaker to become a finalist at the Banff Mountain Film Festival.
Exploring the Mother of Waters, which follows Australian filmmaker and extreme kayaker Mick O’Shea as he becomes the first known person to navigate the full length of the Mekong River from its source in Tibet to the South China Sea. The film explores and celebrates the diverse cultures and environments of the Mekong valley while exposing some of the most pressing human-rights and resource-rights issues facing the region’s subsistence cultures.
Ride of the Mergansers, which brings to the screen the challenging life of the hooded merganser, a rare and reclusive duck found only in North America. Produced by U.S.-based Steve Furman, the film takes audiences to the Great Lakes region where, within 24 hours of hatching, tiny ducklings must make a perilous leap to the ground from the safety of their nests high in the trees.
The World Tour reaches more than 175,000 people in about 30 countries on all seven continents. Many of the tour screenings have become hotly anticipated events that function as local fundraisers for outdoors groups and environmental organizations.
Details about specific tour locations, including contact information for ticket sales and film programs, can be found at www.banffcentre.ca/mountainculture/tour/
The Banff Mountain Film Festival is an annual international competition featuring the world’s best films on mountain subjects. In 2006, the festival received more than 300 entries from 37 countries. The film festival is organized by Mountain Culture at The Banff Centre in Banff, Canada.
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High resolution, downloadable photos of select tour films are available on request.
Media Contact
Jill Sawyer
Media and Communications Officer, The Banff Centre
403.762.6475
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