MARCH 11, 2010 ISSUE
Banff Film Festival Returns to Boone March 26 and 27
Boone has long been regarded as one of the top destinations in the country when it comes to outdoor adventure sports. The thriving outdoor sports scene of Boone is also known for its legendary support of the Banff Mountain Film Festival. The sellout crowds at Farthing Auditorium on the campus of ASU have regularly received recognition by the Banff Film Festival’s organizers for being one of the most supportive locations that the festival visits. Of the more than 500 stops in 30 countries that the festival makes every year, Boone ranks in the top three of the largest audiences in North America—and it isn’t just the number of people that attend the festival that make it so unique, it is the amount of energy that they bring to the screenings every year.
“It’s as much about the energy as it is about the numbers,” Hanes Boren, founder of Footsloggers in Boone, said about the festival’s success. “The crowd in Boone is just so receptive of these films and it speaks so well for the community in Boone and just shows how much this area appreciates the outdoors.”
“We have a great mountain community up here, and I think that’s one reason why the film festival is so well received,” said Rich Campbell, director of ASU Outdoor Programs. “It underscores what a lot of us already know about our area: we have great mountain culture, great outdoor sports pursuits, a great environment. Overall, there’s just a neat community of folks living here.”
Boren believes the large turnout at Farthing every year is representative of the type of people who live in Boone. “It’s a very exciting time,” Boren said of the festival. “It’s a great opportunity for the outdoor community to be able to mingle together, to see each other and talk, and it really just embodies the spirit of our outdoor community.
“Boone is a very global community,” Boren continued. “We’re a community that shares a lot of the concerns and interests of what is going on in other cultures. And there is a large outdoor sports community in Boone that appreciates not only the high-adrenaline outdoor sports films, they also appreciate the mountain cultural films.”
The support that the festival receives in Boone is due largely in part to the vibrant adventure sports scene around Boone and the community of people who make Boone what it is. Part of the community aspect that Banff helps create in Boone can be experienced in the lobby of Farthing Auditorium. A number of local organizations, nonprofits and outdoor adventure sports companies setup exhibits in the lobby during the screenings.
“Banff has turned into a conduit, to a degree, for some of the land conservation movements and other environmental organizations,” Boren explained. “It’s a great place where these organizations and companies are able to show what they are working on, to talk about some of their projects and it provides a great way for these organizations to meet the public.”
“One of the aspects that the Banff Film Festival tries to showcase is the mountain lifestyle,” Campbell said. “One thing that I’ve really noticed is that a lot of people who are attracted to, and really thrive, in mountain communities such as our own, or some of the other great mountain communities elsewhere, are often times pretty eccentric people. It takes a certain kind of person to make it in these kinds of places. People who really enjoy four seasons, people who embrace the mountains trails, the epic ice climbs, or going out skiing, or any of those types of activities are the type of people that Banff films usually focus on. Mountain communities attract those kinds of people and I think the film festival ends up highlighting those types of people and that spirit really comes through.”
Audience members of the film festival are transported into a wide variety of different cultures and places and are able to witness some truly incredible moments as if they were actually there. Whether showcasing the incredible view of flying as seen from the base jumpers helmet, the view of a deep powder ski descent, a free solo rock climb or one man’s quest to pedal across two continents, the Banff Mountain Film Festival takes audience members to the scene of adventure, and brings them safely back again, all in the matter of a few hours, all while sitting comfortably in a theater.
And while the extreme thrills of cutting edge adventure sports is exciting to see, ultimately, the festival’s goal is to showcase a wide range of films that help to ensure that the diversity of different films will provide a compelling video experience for everyone who attends.
“For the outdoor community, Banff is like a vortex in that it brings so many people from all different areas within the outdoor community together,” Campbell said. “Paddlers really enjoy coming, climbers, people that are really into the ski scene, people that are into fly fishing, people that are just into adventure travel in general, so the festival is really appealing to all of those different types of people.”
While audience members experience the exploits of these daring and adventurous people as they travel around the globe in search of adventure, understanding and meaning in the cultures they visit, these films help Rich Campbell appreciate the great outdoor adventure opportunities that Boone has to offer even more.
“For me, it just makes me proud to be a part of this community,” Campbell said. “More than anything, the festival’s films make me appreciate what I have right here in my own backyard. We’re surrounded by great people, great mountains, great rivers, great trails, and it just underscores to me what a great community we live in.”
For Campbell, as well as the many others involved in the film selection process, the two full-length features that have been chosen for this year are great examples of the spirit of adventure and capture what the Banff Film Festival is all about. The film on Friday night, “Take a Seat,” is the story of one man’s quest to pedal a tandem bicycle from the tip of Alaska to the southern most point of South America. Along the way he picks up friends and strangers and together they make their way on an incredible journey. “It’s a great story,” Campbell said. “Over the course of two years and two months he travels through California, Central America, South America and explores some really interesting cultures. Dominic is a really funny guy, he’s the filmmaker and he doesn’t have a film crew—it’s just him, a camera and a bike.”
The film selected for the second night is “Finding Farley” and it documents one family’s three-month-long journey through Canada as they seek to retrace the steps of Farley Moffat, a Canadian literary legend and environmental activist. “’Finding Farley’ was both the Grand Prize winner and People’s Choice award winner at Banff this year. It tells the story of a couple who take a canoe journey across Canada with their dog and their two year old son.”
“It’s a great cultural film about Canada,” Campbell continued. “To me, it feels like a great extension to the Olympics this year. It’s a 100 percent Canadian film—both the landscapes and the people—and it really dives into Canadian culture and is a neat examination of life and adventure in Canada. It’s not hardcore climbing or skiing, but it’s an adventure of a different kind that, for anyone with a family, or anyone who went camping with their parents growing up, will be able to relate to and, hopefully, will be inspired by this film.”
The Banff Mountain Film Festival comes to Boone for the 14th annual Best of the Festival World Tour on Friday and Saturday, March 26 and 27, at ASU’s Farthing Auditorium, with screenings at 7:30 p.m. both nights. Tickets cost $7 for students and $9 for the general public, and can be purchased at Farthing Auditorium and Footsloggers in downtown Boone.
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