Banff Mountain Film Competition

Brian D. Johnson is a Canadian writer and filmmaker. An award-winning journalist, he’s known for his long-time role as film critic and senior arts writer at Maclean’s magazine, where he remains a Contributing Editor. As former President of the Toronto Film Critics Association, he created and produced the annual TFCA Awards Gala with its $100,000 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, the largest prize for Canadian cinema. 

Johnson has made two short films, Tell Me Everything (2006) and Yesno (2010). He has also produced and directed two documentary features, which both premiered at TIFF, played festivals around the world, and went on to receive a nationally theatrical release and a CBC TV broadcast. Al Purdy Was Here (2015), the story of a Canadian legendary poet, played 70 screens across Canada. The Colour Of Ink (2022), which explores the magic of a primal medium, was shot in seven countries. Produced by Sphinx Productions and the National Film Board, it won various festival prizes and a Canadian Screen Award for Best Cinematography in a Documentary.

Born in England and raised in Toronto, Johnson has written for publications ranging from the Globe & Mail to Rolling Stone. He has worked as a broadcaster in radio and television and spent five years touring and recording full-time as a musician. He has hosted onstage interviews with authors, actors and filmmakers, notably One Night Only, an evening of conversation with Al Pacino at Toronto’s Massey Hall in 2013. He also has published a book of poetry, a novel and four non-fiction books, including a history of the Toronto International Film Festival, Brave Films, Wild Nights: 25 Years of Festival Fever.

Johnson lives in Toronto and is married to writer Marni Jackson.

Joaquin Gomez is a composer, sound designer and producer from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He started working in the audiovisual world at 15, creating soundtracks for documentaries, animations, video games, trailers, TV series, mapping and films. With both classical and contemporary formation, he blends sound design and music with modern techniques. His great passion for nature and outdoor sports led him to find his true north, combining his music with this amazing industry and creating ONA Sounds in 2015, a film scoring and sound design company. During 2020 with his brother Tomas, they created ONA Short Film Festival, an event that takes place in Venice, Italy.

Joaquín entered the Banff Centre for Arts And Creativity in the audio post-production and audio recording department as a practicum. He has presented several films during the festival and has collaborated as a jury as well. Definitely an experience that changed his life forever.

Some of his major works include the sound design for Game of Thrones, Harry Potter & Call of Duty video game trailers. He composed the soundtrack for Ruin & Rose, The River Runner, Champions of the Golden Valley, Wallmapu, The Time Within, The Traverse, Near the River, The Passage and Movements (which won the Chrystal Pine Award for best soundtrack). Since 2020 he is working for Disney Latin-America as a composer & sound designer for different projects.

Kasia Biernacka is an expedition caver and cave photographer. Her favorite destinations are North, Central and South America. 

Kasia works as Film Programming Director for the Ladek Mountain Festival in Poland. She also translates outdoor films from English, French and Spanish into Polish, gives talks about her expeditions and does cave photography workshops.

Masha Gordon is an experienced board executive, an avid alpinist, and a mother-of two. She started her career as a journalist for the Washington Post in Moscow and spent the next two decades working in finance leading investment teams at Goldman Sachs and PIMCO. She moved to a portfolio career of non-executive board roles in 2014 and currently serves as a board chair of Constellation and a non-executive chair of Capricorn Energy. She is a founder of GRIT&ROCK, a foundation that supports female attainment in mountaineering through annual expedition grant program.

A passionate alpinist, Masha participated in over 30 expeditions and is a holder of two Guinness world records.

Shelma is a sucker for a good story. Whether it’s documenting cyclists of color in New York City, building a temporary community art park in the Lower East Side or highlighting underrepresented stories in the outdoors, she focuses on bringing people together and sharing their stories. She is the founder of Flash Foxy, a multi-media platform that celebrates women and genderqueer folks in climbing. Shelma's directorial debut, Do Better Together, was an official selection for several festivals, including but not limited to MountainFilm, Kendal Mountain Film Festival, No Mans Land Film Festival and Filmed by Bike Film Festival. Shelma recently completed her first featured length film, On The Land, which documents a skill swap between two women - one a hunter and the other a climber - over the course of two years and the community they find with one another.

The current Vice President of the Access Fund Board of Directors, Shelma was named one of 40 women who’ve made the biggest impact in the outdoor world by Outside Magazine in 2017 as well as listed on the 30 Most Powerful Women in Travel List by Conde Nast Traveler in 2019. A leader in our community, she has written, spoken and presented on the importance of creating a climbing community that reflects and welcomes everyone who identifies as a climber. Shelma currently splits her time between Brooklyn, NY and the Eastern Sierra, CA and can often be found plugging widgets into horizontal cracks at the Gunks or getting scared on granite highballs in Bishop.