The Best of Banff
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The Banff Mountain Film Festival wrapped up yesterday, with Jason Burlage’s Mi Chacra taking home the grand prize. The film tracks a Peruvian subsistence farmer who moonlights as a porter on the Inca Trail, hauling gear for Machu Picchu trekkers to support his family.
Other winners included Felt Soul Media’s Eastern Rises, an excellent, lively film about a fishing misadventure in Russia’s bear-and-mosquito-filled Kamchatka Peninsula; Crossing the Ditch, an Australian film about kayakers attempting to cross the Tasman Sea; and A Life Ascending, Stephen Grynberg’s quiet, patient documentary about mountain guide Ruedi Beglinger. Beglinger was guiding a group of backcountry skiers in British Columbia’s Selkirk Mountains in 2003 when an avalanche hit, killing seven; the film follows him and his family in the aftermath of the accident. (Our 2003 feature on the tragedy can be found here.)
You can watch the trailers to these films below. The complete list of winners should be up on the Banff Centre’s homepage … soon.
—Abe Streep
Mi Chacra
Eastern Rises
Crossing the Ditch
A Life Ascending
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