COLUMN: Festival celebrates mountain films
Anger, admiration, and laughter were just a few reactions that were aroused at the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour Thursday night.
Stopping in Logan for the third year, the annual Canadian-based competition displayed some of its winning films that have been touring the United States and several countries throughout the world since December.
The competition and tour give mountain adventurers and filmmakers alike the opportunity to receive national and international exposure.
This year’s stop in Logan was sponsored by the Outdoor Recreation Center and held a raffle to raise money for the Lyon Maas Mueggler Outdoor Leadership Scholarship at Utah State. It featured films that left audience members inspired and entertained.
Perhaps the most emotional film was one titled “The Cost of Freedom.” This film told of the gray wolf, an animal that environmentalists throughout the Rocky Mountain region have been trying to protect for the past several years. As mentioned on the film, the species almost died out in the 1930s, and in the early 1990’s, a plan was started to capture the remaining wolves and relocate them to safer habitats that would be off limits to hunters. The plan failed, and after the wolves began killing privately owned livestock, government officials were forced to recapture them and put them to sleep. One observer said the film was “heart-wrenching” and left her “physically ill” after watching the methods used to recapture the animals, which included tranquilizer guns as well as foot traps.
A film that left many observers awestruck was the grand prize winner, “Part Machine, Part Animal,” which tells the story of Warren McDonald, an ice climber who lost his legs in a terrible accident several years ago. Despite his injury, he has continued to explore some of the most dangerous icy terrain in the country.
The night wasn’t completely serious, however. It also included films that had the audience roaring with laughter. One such film was called “Extreme Tramping: Lord of the Springs,” which is about four young men who, as they put it, have devoted their adult lives to finding the best trampolines to use. It shows them walking around neighborhoods and breaking into backyards with trampolines in them. One of the members was “‘recruited’ from ‘Deutschland,'” which made it hard for him to communicate with his teammates because they didn’t “speak Dutch.” Another comedic film was “French Fries to Go,” which tells of a man’s dream of making gasoline out of grease from french fries.
The Banff Mountain Film Festival began 28 years ago in Banff, Alberta, Canada. It was created by the Banff Centre of Mountain Culture, which mission statement is to promote “understanding and appreciation of the world’s mountain places by creating opportunities for people to share – and find inspiration in – mountain experiences, ideas and visions.”
It also tackles critical issues that include access to mountain regions both public and private, risk and responsibility, and the “inspirational impact of mountains, mountain people, and mountain achievements,” among others.
Held each November, the two-day competition receives hundreds of video entries, making it necessary to have a selection committee choose which ones should be shown. Once the winning films are chosen, the 11-month world tour begins, traveling to 180 locations in the United States and 25 more international locations such as Iceland, Mexico, and even a few countries in South America.
Matthew Andersen is a junior majoring in technical writing. Comments can be sent to mattandersen@cc.usu.edu