The Banff Mountain Film Festival, a program combining outdoor extreme sports with the art of filmmaking, visited Ohio State’s Wexner Center Tuesday as part of its 34th world tour.

The festival, an international film contest, takes place during the last weekend of October and the first week of November each year. Select films then go on tour, stopping on all seven continents.

The film contest and touring festival are sponsored by the Banff Centre, a non-profit educational institution that promotes the arts, leadership and the environment, according to the Banff Centre Web site.

Tuesday’s program featured eight films from this year’s festival. The selections showcased extreme sports including mountain climbing, tandem biking, skiing and speed flying.
The program attracted extreme sports fanatics. Many have been attending the festival’s tour for years.

The university “where we did our undergrad in California had the tour and we loved it, so everywhere we’ve moved, we’ve looked for it,” said Anne Jansen of Columbus.

Jansen and her husband Mike said they enjoy outdoor activities, so the films get them excited to try sports such as backpacking and rock climbing.

It is the combination of the sports and the art, however, that keeps them coming back to the festival.

“The photography is just insane,” Mike Jansen said. “It’s both aspects of it, the adventure part of it but also the filming.”

The selections this year, which included a Banff Mountain Film Festival award-winner and two special jury mentions, did not disappoint.

The highlights of the evening were the two longer films shown, “Take a Seat” and “First Ascent: Alone on the Wall.”

“Take a Seat” chronicles Dominic Gill’s mission to ride his tandem bicycle from the northern tip of Alaska to the southern tip of South America. Gill looked to meet new friends both to keep him company and to help him pedal his tandem bicycle.

Gill was joined by a variety of people, including a retired rocket scientist, a hitchhiker, someone ditching school and a Canadian politician.

Throughout the inspirational film, he faced hardships including bad weather, poor terrain, loneliness and a dwindling budget before ultimately achieving his goal.

“First Ascent: Alone on the Wall” is a documentary about Alex Honnold’s successful free solo climb up Yosemite National Park’s Half Dome.

Solo climbers climb without any ropes or protective equipment. Honnold, today’s leading solo climber, is the only person to attempt to free solo climb Half Dome.

Paul Price, the Banff on-site tour coordinator, said these films stood out because of their balance between humor and adventure.

“It’s hard to choose a favorite, but it’s between ‘Take a Seat’ and ‘Alone on the Wall,'” Price said. “I like films that are both adventurous and humorous, and these films demonstrated both.”

Other films included a fictional cartoon, an environmental piece, a film about the Japanese cultural connection to winter, films featuring skiing and speed flying and a humorous film about the world’s tallest water slide.

The programs are different at each of the tour stops, according to the festival’s Web site.
Price said he worked closely with Wexner Center film and video curator Dave Filipi to choose the films for this stop on the tour.

“We have 27 films that tour with us,” Price said. “Dave knows his audience now, so he can help me decide what people usually like.”

The program got its start at the Wexner Center when OSU’s Outdoor Source organization approached Filipi and asked if he would be interested, he said. The festival has grown from there.

“There’s a kind of built-in crowd at this point,” Filipi said. “We almost always do it this time of the year around April, so people are looking for it.”

Tuesday was no exception. The “built-in crowd” was joined by many first-time attendees for this sold-out program. Several people were turned away at the door.
The audience was energetic and seemed to enjoy the program.

Price said he hopes the audience had a good time and learned something from the films.
“I hope they really enjoyed themselves, and I hope they appreciate getting to see a variety of films from around the world,” Price said.