Banff festival to return Peak film experiences

Hang onto your hats. The Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour is back, and it’s coming to a venue near you.

The ever-popular and often sold-out film festival showcases movies – some as short as 30 seconds and some as long as 25 minutes – that celebrate the culture, the sport and the beauty of mountains.

“Seeing footage can definitely be inspiring,” rock climber Jeff Butterfield of Bar Harbor said of the festival. “Particularly if it’s areas you haven’t visited before or hope to visit.”

The climber and owner of Bar Harbor’s Atlantic Climbing School doesn’t often find himself in a room packed with 500 people who are as passionate about mountains as he is. But that’s how it will be on Sunday, Feb. 12, at the Grand Auditorium in Ellsworth, when the mountain sport movies will be shown.

“Climbing’s unique,” Butterfield said. “It’s a unique culture. When you’re with a group of people who also share that, there’s a sense of community, and that’s what you feel when you’re in a place like that. It’s uncommon to have a gathering that big of climbers.”

But the festival’s local promoters want people to know that rock climbers, hard-core skiers, kayakers and BASE jumpers – folks who jump off mountains or tall buildings with a parachute and a lot of chutzpah – aren’t the only ones who enjoy the diverse collection of movies.

“We get a very wide age range,” Jake Dickey, assistant buyer for Cadillac Mountain Sports in Ellsworth, said Thursday. “Teenagers up through people in their 60s, their 70s. We have real young people who come in and people who bring their kids. … We have people who have been coming to Banff since we started doing it. For a long time.”

The world tour is 20 years old this year and started when organizers of the Banff Mountain Film Festival in the Canadian Rockies decided they wanted to share the efforts and talents of the world’s mountain filmmakers with a larger audience.

That decision was a good one for places like Maine, with its natural beauty and avid fans of nature-based adventures, local promoters said.

“I could enjoy a whole weekend [of the films],” Brad Ryder of Epic Sports in Bangor said. “My favorite part is the opening music. When I hear that, it’s just tingles on the spine. I know I’ll be really entertained and see some incredible films for the next two, two and a half hours.”

Banff film festival schedule

. Rockport – A mix of mountain sport and mountain culture films will be shown at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, at Camden Hills Regional High School. Tickets for adults are $8 in advance, $10 at the door, and $5 for students. Call Maine Sport Outfitters at 236-7120 for tickets and information.

. Ellsworth – Mountain culture films will be shown at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, and mountain sports films will be shown at 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 12, [Sunday’s show is sold out] at the Grand Auditorium. Tickets are $8. Call the Grand at 667-9500 for tickets.

. Bangor – A mix of mountain sport and mountain culture films will be shown at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 13, at the Penobscot Theater Opera House. Tickets are $10. Call Epic Sports at 941-5670 for tickets and information.

. Portland – A mix of mountain sport and mountain culture films will be shown at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 14, at the State Theater. Tickets are $12 in advance and $9 for students with ID or $15 and $11 at the door. Call Eastern Mountain Sports at 541-1919 or Nomads at 347-7464 for tickets.