A Look Back at the Banff Mountain Film Festival

Banff Mountain Film Festival Santa Monica A Million Years Ago

Many years ago, while I was still living in Los Angeles, a friend introduced me to the Banff Mountain Film Festival. I sat in awe in the historic Aero Theater in Santa Monica watching a mix of short films that ramped up my adrenaline as though I were the one doing all the daredeviling. It was a way to live vicariously through all those superstars while still in the comfort and relative safety of a theater.

Banff in Italy

Fast forward something like fifteen years and – lucky, lucky, lucky – I rediscovered the Festival as part of its international tour, which stops in Turin and other cities all around Italy. The film selections have been broken up into a couple of evenings rather than the one long marathon that I remembered in California, but the adrenaline rush remains. Two or three weeks since viewing them, two films have stuck in my mind (not to denigrate the others, because I enjoyed them all immensely).

One Slackline, Two Balloons, and a Heart-stopping Walk in the Clouds

Brazilian Rafael Bridi is the subject of Walking on Clouds. You have to see it to believe it – Bridi sets a world record for slacklining between two hot air balloons above the clouds. A slackline is exactly that, kind of like a tightrope but flexible. Bridi trained for the walk for seven months and it is a soaring achievement both in terms of physicality and filmmaking as he and filmmakers (Renan Kamizi, director; João Juchem, producer) float above the Praia Grande in Santa Catarina, Brazil. You can relax a little knowing that he is clipped in at all times.

Dr. Felix Keller – Saving Glaciers

For sheer inspiration, the award goes to Ciril Jazbec’s profile on glaciologist Dr. Felix Keller. Glacier health is at a critical juncture. We’ve been reading stories and experiencing for ourselves oddly warm winter temperatures and a depressing lack of snow this winter. A shifting glacier on the Italian-Swiss border led to closed-door discussions culminating in a 2021 agreement after the melting Theodul Glacier began shifting the borders between the two countries. Dr. Keller’s love for his beloved Swiss Alps and, in particular, the Morteratsch Glacier, is infectious and palpable. After many sleepless nights, he realized that the melting glacier water could be recycled and put to use in saving the glacier itself. A more detailed description can be found here and this video profiles Dr. Keller.

Going Back a Few Years – Brad Gobright

Thinking about this year’s films got me thinking about one of the other Banff films from a few years ago, one that left me with a lasting impression, Safety Third. The film featured free climber Brad Gobright, another larger-than-life personality. If I’m not mistaken, this film screened in 2018, but it feels like yesterday rather than five years ago. At the time I watched Gobright, amazed and terrified. My limited forays into rock climbing ended pretty quickly when I realized I just couldn’t get over my fear of heights (code for “I don’t feel like doing this thing that I could potentially die doing.”). You can still watch the film here but be prepared: sadly, Brad died in November 2019 during a rappelling accident in Mexico.

Going Back Even Farther – The Alan Parsons Project and I Robot (1977)

Not sure why but this album popped into my head and I’ve been listening to it while writing this post. No, that’s not entirely truthful. The song Sirius popped into my head but I opted to listen to the I Robot album since I found a good, high-quality upload on YouTube. I’ve been in quite the nostalgic mood lately, what with Burt Bacharach’s death, the new Depeche Mode release of Ghosts Again and Peter Gabriel’s new single The Court. It only makes sense I’d dig back even farther and listen to something like I Robot (here, Eric Woolfson talks about the album and the missing comma). The only song from that album I really actually remember hearing play on the radio back in the day is I Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You. That is no doubt simply my memory because I’m fairly certain there were other U.S. singles from that album.

Negative Nostalgia Tempered with Gratitude

Despite the recent somewhat negative nostalgia, it’s been tempered by feelings of gratitude. I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on how I grew up listening to a wide range of music. Somehow I heard it all on the local radio stations and at home on albums, where I switched just as easily from The Carpenters to The Chi-Lites, from Mexican mariachi music to old sailor shanties. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

To read a little bit about this year’s Torino Film Festival, click here.

Pulling at Threads is my occasional newsletter. It always accompanies my blog posts but I sometimes send infrequent updates on other goings on. If you want more of an “insider’s” view on what’s happening in my reading and writing life, you can sign up here.