Mountain Film Festival comes to town

The Banff Mountain Film Festival world tour arrives at Bristol’s Victoria Rooms for a three-night stand from April 16-18.

There are two separate and completely different programmes of high altitude outdoorsy fun on offer. The red programme screens on Thur 16 and Sat 18, comprising seven short films as follows:

Afterglow

“A visual spectacular that celebrates the beauty of skiing in deep snow pillows and Alaskan spines in a truly unique way,” claims the blurb.

Danny MacAskill: The Ridge

Trials rider Danny MacAskill trundles along the Isle of Skye’s notorious death-defying Cuillin Ridgeline on his mountain bike.

Drawn

Climber and artist Jeremy Collins embarks on four journeys, from the Venezuelan Amazon, to the China-Mongolian Border, via the northern reaches of Canada and Yosemite Valley in California.

Into the Empty Quarter

Adventurers Alastair Humphreys and Leon McCarron make their way across through the world’s largest sand desert – the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula – inspired by their hero Wilfred Thesiger.

Mending the Line

The story of 90-year-old WWII veteran Frank Moore, who returns to France with his wife and son to heal the wounds of his past by fly fishing the streams he once helped free.

Sufferfest 2

Bikers Alex Honnold and Cedar Wright embark on an ambitious mission to climb 45 of the American Southwest’s most iconic desert towers, via the most difficult routes, obviously.

Sun Dog

The tale of a canine skier named Conga who enjoys whizzing through the snow in the stunning Patagonian mountain range.

Touch

A paragliding tour of some of the most visually spectacular areas in Europe including Santorini, Mont Blanc, and the Col du Galibier in France.

The blue programme screens on Fri 17 and comprises eight films:

All My Own Stunts

Downhill mountain bike specialist and professional stuntman Rob Jarman sets his sights on a UK mountain bike downhill speed record down Skidaw in the Lake District.

Into the Ditch

For reasons best known to themselves, kayakers Ben Marr and Rush Sturges tackle breakneck speeds down 500 vertical feet of a concrete drainage ditch in British Columbia in Canada.

Arctic Swell

Photographer Chris Burkard and his buddies brave sub-zero temperatures to go surfing in the inhospitable Arctic Circle.

Sculpted in Time: The Wise Man

Eighty-eight year-old skier Eddie Hunter whizzes down his home town mountain in the Canadian Rockies.

Tashi and the Monk

On a remote mountaintop in the foothills of the Himalayas, former Buddhist monk Lobsang seeks to transform young people’s lives through a community that rescues orphaned and neglected children.

Unrideables

Introducing speedriding – the pursuit for those who don’t find conventional extreme sports sufficiently daft or challenging. Barely ten years old, it fuses elements of skiing and parachute flight.

Valley Uprising: Stonemasters

Free-climbing the mega-routes of the Yosemite Valley. The blurb for this one warns that it contains “coarse language and some drug use” – as in “Holy fuck – I’d have to be completely wasted to attempt that!” presumably.

Wild Women: Faith Dickey

Slack-liner Faith sets out to show us “just how fun life on the line can be”

Each screening starts at 7.30pm, though the bar is open for much-needed fortification an hour earlier. Tickets are £13.50/£12.50 (conc). To book and for more information, go here.