Extreme angles
Some adventure filmmakers rose to the occasion of the 32nd annual Banff Mountain Film Festival last week, while others sunk to unnerving depths.
Consider “Ice Mines,” by Canadian Will Gadd, who plunges deep underground in Sweden to find ice climbing gold in the blackness of abandoned mines. Bizarre as it sounds, Gadd says he may have found the ice climber’s salvation in the age of global warming.
This 30-minute production, chilling in more ways than one, is among two dozen films coming to Spokane Friday through Sunday at the Bing Crosby Theater with the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour of top films from the famous Alberta festival that concluded Nov. 4.
“There’s some incredible photography in this film, and in all the films,” said Phil Bridgers, spokesman for Mountain Gear, which sponsors the World Tour stop in Spokane. For the next 11 months, the tour will visit cities around the world.
Festival officials said they received 296 entries from 32 countries this year. Bridgers was in Banff during the nine-day festival that screened 53 finalist films this year.
Although the list of festival films that would be licensed to go on the road this year was still evolving this week, Bridgers said the two-dozen films coming to Spokane will once again cover a wide range of outdoor pursuits, including climbing, paddling, wildlife and quirky short subjects from creative minds.
A different selection of four or more films on various subjects will be presented at each showing, he said.
Shows start at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and – new this year – 6 p.m. on Sunday.
“We have an active audience that likes to be playing outdoors in the afternoon,” said Bridgers, noting that the Sunday films have been shown as a matinee in the past.
Friday night’s show will be anchored by “24 Solo,” which follows the gut-wrenching story of Chris Eatough on his quest for a seventh world title in the unforgiving discipline of 24-hour solo mountain-bike racing. Dark horse Craig Gordon, the Australian national champion, challenges Eatough to a level of intensity and exhaustion that leaves one rider with severe blood poisoning.
“It’s hard for me to call this a biking film,” Bridgers said. “It’s really about the challenge people face when they push their bodies to their limits and beyond. It just happens the story is set in a bike race.”
Saturday’s offerings will be anchored by Ice Mines, Bridgers said.
Sunday’s shows will feature “20 Seconds of Joy,” which won the coveted “People’s Choice” award from viewers at the festival in Banff.
The documentary begins in 2002 as it follows a now 30-year-old woman through the many stages of her BASE jumping career – until it comes to a sudden stop.
“This is a story, with a lot of action, about the changing of a young woman’s life, as we see her grow up through a serious reality check,” Bridgers said. “You have to see the ending.”
Bridgers said he was keeping his fingers crossed in hopes that a West Coast sea kayaking film would be released for the World Tour. ” ‘Pacific Horizons’,” is a fantastic film about ferry-hopping and sea kayaking, chasing tidal surges and riding big waves,” he said. “If they release it, we’ll show it.”
As always, the heart-thumping collection of short clips used to introduce the World Tour showings entices viewers with dramatic moments from the 53 finalists in this year’s film festival competition.
The intro – last year’s is making a splash on You Tube – illustrates the festival’s commitment to excellence.
The music was commissioned in the late 1990s to an accomplished composer, Jacques Blackstone, who created a rhythm for footage ranging from pastoral to heart-stopping. The captivating voice of the intro belongs to Richard Armstrong, a New York-based teacher and performer who conducts International Voice Workshops at the Banff Centre.
“Don’t worry,” said Bridgers. “They skier in the avalanche and the climber that takes the bad fall – they both survived.”