Banff Mountain Film Festival climbs to dizzying heights

Four British moms join a local rowing club, pretty much for laughs, and wind up powering themselves 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.

The world’s most hardened surfers perfect their skills in Iceland, where they confront the harshest conditions of all: frigid water and the unforgiving North Atlantic wind.

A zooming mountain cyclist explores some of the most gorgeous biking trails in the American West, bringing viewers along for a stunning trek through nature at its most magical.

As they race across the tundra, a passionate bond grows between mushers and sled dogs — the greatest endurance athletes in the world.

Spectacular photography and stirring stories of adventurers and daredevils — as well as just-plain-folks who decided to take up a challenge — make the Banff Mountain Film Festival “a delight for anyone who’s an outdoor enthusiast,” said spokesman Phillip Bridgers.

The travelling collection of short movies, most between 5 and 25 minutes long, should have you gasping at the wonders of this world as well as the amazing ways that people explore and enjoy them. Four hundred independent films were entered in the 2016 Banff Mountain Film Festival contest, Bridgers said — that’s the most ever, since the festival began in 1976 — and judges winnowed those down to 32 winners. What’s screening at the Kiggins Theatre in downtown Vancouver tonight and Saturday is 16 of those films — a different two-hour program of eight films each night. Check the website, Kiggins.com, for the final details.

Banff, a town in Alberta that’s one of Canada’s most popular tourist winter-sports destinations, is a cultural mecca too. It has long been the home of a developing institution now called the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, hosting musicians, dancers, storytellers and artists of every kind. The festival of all 32 films takes place in Banff over 9 days every November; then, Bridgers said, different film lineups hit the road, destined for big cities like Chicago and Cleveland, medium-sized ones like Portland, smaller towns like Tempe, Ariz., and our own Vancouver.

“Each year has a theme to it, based on what’s been popular in the past,” Bridgers said. This year, he said, there are “dog films each night — and what’s really interesting is, they couldn’t be more different.”

“Dog Power” is a 25-minute look at the excitement, passion and interspecies teamwork of dog-driven sports. “Trail Dog” is also about interspecies partnership: one man in the south of France who approaches the meaning of life as he runs in the mountains with his two dogs. It’s not about adrenaline and daring — it’s a quiet film about finding joy.

“Real happiness is uncomplicated,” the narrator of “Trail Dog” says. “It’s about our relationships with the Earth, nature and each other.”

“Four Mums in a Boat” is another film that’s just as much about people and their lives as about nature and its challenges. Each “mum” had a husband, two children and a job; none was an athlete or adventurer. But their love of rowing — and a glass of wine or two — inspired them to take up the toughest row in the world, the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. They made it in 67 days and set a world record as the oldest women to row across an ocean.

‘Are you crazy?’

And then there’s “Metronomic.” Picture rock musicians, dancers, acrobats and a film-stunt unit known as the “Flying Frenchies,” all jamming away and flying about — literally — as they dangle in the air and zip around on zip lines, high over a rocky canyon, somewhere in France.

The grooving, funky music is punctuated by regular cries of “Are you crazy?” The answer is probably yes. Just wait until you glimpse the drummer, pounding away on a full drum set that’s floating at what looks like about 1,000 feet up in the air.

The Banff Mountain Film Festival is an incredible feast for the eyes. “It’s all extremely visual,” said Bridgers, with today’s handy technologies helping to liberate independent filmmakers and even amateurs from the need for big budgets and lots of technical expertise.

“But there are some incredibly good stories, too,” he said. “You’re going to go on a lot of amazing adventures throughout the weekend.”