The University Outdoor Program has partnered with the outdoor-oriented Banff Centre to bring the annual two-day Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour to the McDonald Theatre.
The general theme of the festival is inspiring people to engage and interact with the outdoors. The Banff Mountain Film Festival, an accredited international festival, is composed of two and a half hour segments that feature both long and short films ranging between five minutes and an hour. Each film brings a unique and interesting interaction with the outdoors. Some of the films feature a more extreme approach to outdoor film, like base jumping or timed rock climbing, while other films are simply a way of embracing the natural world.
“It’s really just a chance to be inspired by people doing amazing things,” said Rithy Khut, Outdoor Program office manager. “Whether you’re looking for adrenaline or you’re looking for natural beauty, it’s all there.”
One of the biggest draws of the film festival is that it can be customized. As part of an international package of outdoor films, Banff offers the organization hosting the festival the ability to choose which Banff films to feature and in what order they should be shown. This allows each specific festival to be unique to the city hosting it because they have the ability to feature outdoor activities that are specific to the region.
“They have all of these movies to choose from, and then they pare it down for groups like us to select from,” Khut said. “We pick the ones that we like best, and we send our list to Banff, and they’ll make a final tour cut for us.”
The process is something that incorporates the interests and opinions of the entire Outdoor Program staff. Multiple months in advance, the entire staff sat down together and selected the films they felt the people of Eugene and University students would enjoy the most. The Outdoor Program’s ability to select the features also allows it to tie the festival into many of the ongoing outdoor activities the program offers.
“It stimulates interest in the outdoors; it stimulates interest in the things our own program — getting out, utilizing the equipment we have to offer. There’s a pretty solid correlation,” said Mike Wilburn, Outdoor Program trip initiator advocate.
Aside from inspiring people to participate in outdoor activities, the film festival strongly promotes diversity in the outdoors. In an industry that often features white males in the majority of films, Banff attempts to stretch beyond the narrow demographic.
“The cultural element is something to get excited about. Banff is really good at encouraging non-traditional people that you see in outdoor film,” said Suzanne Hanlon, Outdoor Program assistant coordinator. “Women are usually underrepresented, as well as people of color, but because this is an international film festival, you get people from all over the world.”
Running close to Earth Day, the film festival works to be environmentally conscious. As part of an initiative to discourage driving, the Outdoor Program has teamed up with the Center for Appropriate Transit to provide bicycle shuttles to and from the theater.
“We’re quite aware of trying to get people to use alternative transportation. We thought ‘how could we encourage it?’ so we worked with CAT,” Hanlon said. “We’re hoping to get several hundred at least utilizing it.”
The light-hearted festival should work as a good reintroduction to the upcoming outdoor seasons of spring and summer.
“It’s just such a fun event. It’s fun for us and the staff. Everybody works together to make this happen,” Hanlon said.
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