Review: Banff Mountain Film Festival – World Tour

Every year, the Banff Mountain Film Festival selects some of the best mountain-oriented films submitted to go on a grand roadshow around the world. Luckily for Edinburgh audiences, the Festival Theatre on Nicholson Street is only too happy to open its doors to the fleece-wearing massif as well as the fleece-curious that rock up whenever the tour arrives in the city.

As always, the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour is organised into programmes of around 2 hours each, and this review covers the Red Programme you can catch at venues throughout the UK & Ireland (and indeed the world) until the end of the year. It’s out on tour with the Blue programme. There’s an additional Yellow programme to stream online – so you can even get your vicarious adrenaline kicks wherever you can connect to the internet. The question is: should you? Read on, and decide for yourself.

Dolomites – philosophical and borderline insane mountain biker Kilian Bron returns to challenge wild terrains wisely left alone by other folks on two wheels. This time he’s taking on the high-alpine challenges of the Dolomites, but instead of presenting us with 5 minutes of sharply edited, breathtaking footage, he and filmmaker Valentin Birant take the viewer on a journey of discovery, talking to locals, and exploring the region’s history. The result is a true and enchanting sense of place in which Bron’s team plan their high-stakes escapades. The mountain bike wizard makes a winning subject, almost innocent in his earnestness whilst his team’s enthusiastic exposition of the technical wizardry behind his world-famous shorts is fascinating. The breathtaking 5-minute, expertly edited finale makes for a thrilling conclusion, but the charm is all in the preamble.

The Streif – an incredibly fun 3 minutes spent with freestyle mountain bike wunderkind Fabio Wibmer as he goes for a spin down the Kitzbühel Streif – a course where simply finishing is usually enough to win any race staged. There’s plenty of humour peppered through this neat little piece from Tobi Reindl, who captures Wibmer’s sense of humour without the rider speaking a word, or taking off his helmet. This singular downhill dash makes for high-octane, highly enjoyable watching.

**Dolomites PhotoCredit: Pierre Vieira**

Dropping Molly – Climber Molly Mitchell made a habit of defying expectations until an attempt on the ‘Crank It’ route in Colorado cost her some broken vertebrae and precipitated a mental health crisis. Cedar Wright certainly dives deep in pursuit of this timely exploration of mental health in the outdoor sports community. As a profile of an athlete at a profound make-or-break point, it’s unflinching yet sympathetic stuff. That said, what the film appears to present as progress, only looks like the start of Molly’s journey to a healthier frame of mind.

Ice Waterfalls – On one level it’s very cool that David Arnaud has followed waterfall enthusiast Aniol Serrasolses on a quest into the Arctic Circle in pursuit of an ‘ice waterfall’ to kayak off. It’s a likeable enough adventure into a stunningly shot world of white plains and crystal blue, ephemeral rivers. However, whilst throwing oneself off a thundering 20-metre-high waterfall is obviously dangerous, peril is curiously absent in this short. Fortunately, there are some insane adventures with a ladder to supply some ropier moments for the genial bunch of kayaking nuts as they pursue the perfect icy cascade to descend in a hurry.

**ICE WATERFALLS Photo by David Sodomka**

Soul Flyers: The Longest Line – perhaps the strongest short in the Red programme, 5 minutes of low-altitude wingsuit flight down the slopes of Mont Blanc in the company of winged adrenaline junkies, Fred Fugen, Vincent Cotte, and Aurelien Chatard. Sure they set a world record for the longest line ever flown at 7.5km, and that’s impressive, but Thibault Gachet combines crisp footage from multiple perspectives to deliver every moment in thrilling detail. For all the danger, it’s impossible to feel anything but immense fun bursting from the screen, as the soaring threesome swing around each other like so many cheeky swallows, whilst sledging each other a little over the intercom.

Welcome to the Pit – A charming introduction to ‘The Pit’ in Yellowknife, Canada, inside the Arctic Circle. In reality, an old gravel pit abandoned to the snow, The Pit has inspired generations of locals to transform it into a snow sports playground. The piece-de-resistance? A rope tow lift ingeniously cobbled together by a local mechanical whiz. Of course, the folks conjuring this sort of facility turn out to be an affable bunch of misfits, and filmmaker Seth Gillis does well to capture their winning personalities with an entertaining blend of show and tell. If someone makes a Hollywood film based on their exploits, don’t be surprised.

Featured Image: SOULFLYERS THE LONGEST LINE – Photo by Fred Fugen