Banff Film Tour comes to Logan
One of the largest adventure film tours in the world made a stop in Logan on Jan. 7–8 to present the annual Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour at the Ellen Eccles Theatre.
Attendees enjoyed evening screenings of award-winning environment and adventure-based films made by independent filmmakers from all over the world.
“The Banff Centre Mountain film festival started 50 years ago, celebrating Mountain culture from around the world in Banff Alberta, in the heart of Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies,” Heather Walter, on-site coordinator for Banff, wrote in an email to The Utah Statesman.
The Banff Centre showcases films from the finalists of its annual Banff Mountain Film Competition held every year at the Banff, Alberta film festival.
“We have juries who screen all of the entries in different categories,” Walter wrote. “The top films from each category are pooled and then the top films of all of those are screened at the festival.”
According to Walter, 90 of the 477 submitted films were chosen to be screened at this year’s festival. Roughly 30 of the winning films were selected to be taken on the Banff World Tour, where they will be screened in over 45 countries and seven continents.
USU Outdoor Programs has hosted the tour in Logan for the last 26 years. According to the associate director of OP Dan Galliher, ticket sales from the event go toward funding an OP scholarship.
“The main thing that this event does for us is it is our major fundraiser for the Lyon, Maas, Mueggler Outdoor Leadership Scholarship,” Galliher said. “It pays for half of a wilderness first responder certification course.”
The scholarship is named after three men who died in an avalanche near the Bear River Range, all of whom were heavily involved in outdoor activities, adventure and activism.
“This is how we keep that scholarship going and keep their names alive,” Galliher said.
According to Galliher, world tour hosts of the festivals get the opportunity to select which of the 30 films to screen at their venue.
“We get to have custom programs both nights,” Galliher said. “The films we show are different from the ones they might screen in Ogden in a couple of weeks.”
According to the center’s website, the film competition takes submissions from six main categories: climbing, mountain sports, mountain culture, environment, snowsports and adventure.
“This year, I think it’s mostly skiing, climbing, mountain biking, canyoneering and running films,” Galliher said. “They usually have some sort of human interest component as well.”
According to Walter, Banff puts together traveling festivals like these to highlight the importance and beauty of storytelling within visual arts and to share those stories with the world.
“The festival is an extension of arts and creativity, in celebration of mountain cultures, — people, arts, environment, sports, expedition, etc. — from around the world,” Walter wrote. “In recent years, we are so happy to see that the films have much greater representation of diverse cultures and individuals, and much greater gender equity.”