Banff Film Festival to present top outdoor adventure movies

I don’t know what it is. I’m normally a quiet, feet-on-the-ground type of guy.

But each year when the Banff Film Festival comes to town, something happens.

It’s not the flu, and it’s more than cabin fever, a common malady this time of year.

I get delusions of grandeur.

The first inkling that the festival is near, and I throw caution to the wind. I believe I can do all the wild and crazy things I see on the screen. And, what’s more, I actually want to do them.

Now, the 2005 Banff Film Festival is coming to Maine next week and I am ready to head out on new, neck-breaking runs over, under and through deep powder, on air-catching kayak leaps over skyrise-high waterfalls and on bike runs in places I wouldn’t even usually walk.

Each year, The Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, sponsors the film festival, featuring some of the best films on mountaineering and other outdoor adventuring from filmmakers around the world. From the more than 330 entries, the center chooses about 30 festival award-winners and audience favorites for the world tour, which travels to 250 locations around the globe. Local hosts choose their programs from a menu of films.

This year, the traveling festival will include films such as “Sinners,” by Bill Heath, which, with little promotion, has achieved almost cult status. The film won the festival award for the best film on mountain sports. One reviewer called it “the most visually remarkable ski film in years.”

Heath created “Sinners” over four years of shooting in the Alberta mountains and created an “ode to deep powder and the sheer love of skiing,” according to a press release.

“This is a film of flowing grace that captures the essence of deep powder,” said festival jury member Mike Libecki.

Another ski film on tour is “Soul Purpose,” a special Jury Award winner, which takes you higher, steeper, deeper as it depicts “big mountain skiing and snowboarding at its most spectacular,” according to the Banff Centre.

Festival films are divided into categories and the best film on mountain environment this year was “Alone Across Australia,” which chronicles Jon Muir’s 2,500-kilometer unsupported trek across Australia. With his dog, Sheraphine, Muir spent 128 days walking south to north across the continent, living off the land. An emotional story of human endurance, the film also won the festival’s Ice Award.

“This film is very real, very powerful, very raw, and absolutely original,” Libecki said.

And I know that’s exactly how I’ll feel when I leave the theater next week – raw, powerful, real and original -ready to do great deeds, even though they may be done from the safety of my living room armchair.

Rich Hewitt can be reached at 667-9394 and bdnnews@downeast.net.

The 2005 Banff Mountain Festival

To contact The Banff Centre, call 403-762-6675 or visit www.banffcentre.ca.

. Bangor, 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 11, Norumbega Ballroom Hall, 941-5670.

. Ellsworth, 7 p.m., Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 12-13, The Grand Auditorium. 667-7819, 667-9500.

. Rockport, 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14, Camden Hills Regional High School Strom Auditorium. 236-7120.