PAINTBRUSH: Sunday night film list Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival 2024

DESERT WINGS, USA, Advisory: Coarse language, Film Synopsis: Paramotoring is a niche, largely undocumented, and little-known flying sport. Desert Wings highlights some of the most dramatic desert landscapes in the American Southwest.

SOUNDSCAPE***CREATIVE EXCELLENCE AWARD*** USA, Advisory: None, Film Synopsis: Soundscape shares the sightless experience of climbing a mountain via echo location, touch and imagination. Soundscape features Erik Weihenmayer, a global adventure athlete and author who is fully blind, as he ascends a massive alpine rock face deep in the Sierra Nevada.

THE BLACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL ***BEST FILM: SNOW SPORTS*** USA, Advisory: None, Film Synopsis: A skier contemplates his connection to skiing and the mountains. As he hurries through the streets of L.A., his path takes a turn after bumping into a jazz musician who helps him discover the correlation between jazz and skiing—an expression of art, skiing, and black culture.

GEORGIA ASTLE: FLIP THE SWITCH, Canada, Advisory: None, Film Synopsis: If you don’t have role models to look up to, it’s harder to progress as a rider. Georgia Astle grew up chasing her older brother. “If he could do it, I could do it” she figured. She got comfortable “flipping the switch” and pushing against the clock. Watch Georgia Astle explore some of British Columbia’s most striking landscapes, on a search for terrain to push her riding, inspired by a rising tide of female freeriders around the world.

Canada Vertical (Tour Edit), Canada, Advisory: TBD, Film Synopsis: After years of preparation, a team of highly motivated Quebeckers set out on one of the longest wilderness expeditions ever documented. Stage one involves skiing in relentless polar conditions from Ellesmere Island to the Northwest Passage where the challenge was reaching the mainland. Cue canoes for a 2,000 km journey across Nunavut and NWT until they reach the first dirt road available where bikes are waiting to be pedaled 4,000 km to Point Pelee in Ontario.

LEO & CHESTER ***BEST FILM: MOUNTAIN CULTURE*** Canada, Advisory: None, Film Synopsis: Leo, a sought-after rock star with a promising career, turns his back on the industry to pursue a life on the land with a herd of buffalo.

NEAR THE RIVER, USA, Advisory: None, Film Synopsis: In the tourism town of Livingston, Zambia, a group of local men who make their living portering kayaks aspire to become safety kayakers on the Zambezi River.

EL GAVILÁN, USA, Advisory: None, Film Synopsis: Rising out of the arid Mexican Desert lies a 900 ft ship’s prow of elegant limestone sporting a 9-pitch 5.13 established in the 90s by Jeff Jackson. A cutting-edge big wall free climb at the time, this route shut down hard men for years.

While we will always strive to show films listed, all film selections and programs are subject to change without notice.