THE Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour returns to York Barbican on April 21 with a new selection of action and adventure films.
The tour features two collections of films from the world’s best adventure filmmakers, with super-human challenges, soulful journeys and spectacular cinematography from the wildest corners of the planet.
Among them is Up To Speed, whose spotlight falls on the extraordinary discipline of speed climbing, soon to feature in the Olympic Games for the first time at Tokyo 2020.
“We can’t wait to share the latest inspirational films from the world’s most prestigious mountain film festival on our biggest tour yet,” says British and Irish tour director Nell Teasdale.
“As well as exhilarating stories starring intrepid characters and pioneering journeys, an evening at Banff is a celebration of the great outdoors, with a vibrant atmosphere and a real sense of community. And we guarantee audiences will leave feeling inspired to have an adventure of their own.”
The tour’s films have been chosen from hundreds of entries for the Banff Mountain Film Festival, held every November in the Canadian Rockies. The UK and Ireland tour starts in Pitlochry, Scotland, on January 18 and finishes in Norwich on May 26, visiting 60 locations with 114 screenings along the way.
Aside from Up To Speed, film highlights include Home, wherein Oxfordshire adventurer Sarah Outen embarks on a four-year, human-powered traverse of the globe, travelling by bike, kayak and rowing boat across Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America and finally the Atlantic.
The punishing elements, months of solitude and storms push Sarah to the mental and physical brink, as Home intimately and unflinchingly captures on her 20,000-mile odyssey.
Spectre Expedition charts the progress of Mission Antarctica: 1,000 miles, 200+kg of kit each, 65 days, three mates and one mountain, those adventurers being Brit Leo Houlding and teammates Jean Burgun, from France, and Kiwi Mark Sedon.
Using snow-kites to travel great distances, with massive loads, at speeds of up to 60kmph, this is the epic tale of a daring dream to reach the summit of one of the most remote mountains on earth: The Spectre in Antarctica.
In The Ladakh Project, French athlete Nouria Newman tackles a 375km solo kayaking expedition down the most remote and daunting rivers in the Indian Himalaya. Facing hair-raising moments, Nouria is forced to push herself to the edge of her limits, saying “I felt really vulnerable. I had a proper look at what my guts were made of.”
Tickets are on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk, on 0203 356 5441 or by visiting the box office in person.