The Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival is a programming-driven, competitive event bringing the best films and books on mountains and the spirit of adventure from around the world to the mountain town of Banff, Alberta. The Festival provides an opportunity for filmmakers and writers to meet and exchange ideas.
The 2024 Banff Mountain Film Competition is now open!
Questions?
For full information on the film competition visit our FilmFreeway page. Submission deadline is August 1, 2024.
To talk to us, contact the Banff Mountain Film Competition at 403.762.6441 or banffmountainfilms@banffcentre.ca
The 2024 Banff Mountain Film Competition is now open!
Submissions for the 2024 Festival are open. For full information on the film competition visit our FilmFreeway page.
After 48 years, the Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival has a proven track record as one of the most prestigious and largest mountain culture festivals in the world. Located in the stunning Canadian Rocky Mountains, the Festival is a programming-driven, competitive event bringing together the best films and books on mountains and the spirit of adventure from around the world. The 2024 festival will be a combination of in-person theatre events and virtual online screenings.
The festival in Banff offers you the chance to meet other filmmakers and industry professionals to exchange ideas and collaborate in a highly creative and inspiring atmosphere. It’s also a great opportunity to connect with leaders in the outdoor adventure field, including climbers, mountaineers, gear manufacturers, potential sponsors, and journalists.
Film finalists are invited to join us at the Festival and as special guests, you will receive:
Films entered into competition will also be considered for inclusion in our World Tour programs that reach a global audience of over half a million people through screenings in approximately 50 countries. Short films are particularly popular for the programming flexibility they provide so if you are submitting a longer film, you may wish to also enter a shorter version in competition for both Festival and World Tour consideration (World Tour programs are typically 2 hours long and contain 5-9 mixed films). If your film is selected for the World Tour, our team will contact you to arrange a separate licensing agreement.
Grand Prize: $5,000
Best Film, Adventure: $3,000
Best Film, Climbing: $3,000
Best Film, Environment: $3,000
Best Film, Mountain Culture: $3,000
Best Film, Mountain Sports: $3,000
Best Film, Snow Sports: $3,000
Best Short Film: $3,000 - Under 20 minutes in length (including credits)
Best Feature Film: $3,000 - Over 70 minutes in length (including credits)
Creative Excellence: $3,000 - Awarded for showcasing creativity and the arts in exploring the spirit of adventure
Audience Choice Award: $3,000 - Chosen by the Festival audience
• Entries are not limited to one award.
• Awards may be presented to the director or the producer of the film.
• In the spirit of being a true Audience Choice award, votes are cast by virtual and in person festival ticket holders only. If person(s) in connection to your film are found to be sharing information on how to vote (via social media or otherwise), your film will be disqualified from receiving this award.
• Prize amounts listed are in Canadian dollars.
Winners will be announced during the film awards ceremony on Sunday, November 5th 2023. The jury reserves the right to not present an award, and its decisions will be final.
Pre-Screeners:
Filmmakers are required to submit their completed film for pre-screening at the time of entry via FilmFreeway. If you are using a secured link, keep your submission updated with any changes to passwords. If English is not the original language of the film, it MUST be entered into competition with burned-in English subtitles as part of the video image, or be dubbed in English. We recommend a sans-serif font with maximum readability against both light and dark backgrounds. Your FilmFreeway entry must remain active for viewing until November 6, 2023.
Finalist Masters:
If your film is selected as a finalist, you will be required to provide a high resolution master via Signiant Media Shuttle. We accept finalist masters as either Avid DNxHD or Apple ProRes 422 codecs at 1920x1080i/p in a .mov or .mxf wrapper and our preference is to use the 10bit codecs (example: ProRes 422 (HQ) or Avid DNxHD HQX). We request finalists to submit their master film with the frame rate that it was edited in, to a maximum of 30 frames per second. Audio should be uncompressed PCM, .wav or .aif at 24bit, 48kHz. If you’re also including 5.1 surround tracks, in addition to the stereo full mix, please include a track listing. Finalists will be contacted by the festival with instructions on how to upload.
Note: The Festival Producer will have the option to conform the content to broadcast-quality standardization or, alternatively, to charge a fee (in consultation with entrant) for Banff Centre in-house corrections in the event of substandard submission.
Accessibility:
If applicable, thoroughly check subtitles for quality (translation and typos) and readability. We recommend a sans-serif font using white text on a black background, and make sure the font size is accessible.
If selected as a finalist, we will request a caption file (SRT) and an audio descriptive track (if available). We strongly encourage you to include caption and audio description files as a standard piece of your post-production and have them ready to provide festivals.
Promotional Materials:
If your film is selected as a finalist, you will be asked to provide a variety of formats and sizes of images from the film to be reproduced, published and/or exhibited for promotional purposes as they pertain to the Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival, World Tour, and the associated Mountain Film Competition at the Banff. Details of requirements will be sent to film finalists.
Mark is a Kiwi adventurer, mountain guide, author and the founder and director of the NZ Mountain Film and Book Festival. He’s been the chief film judge since its competition inception 21 years ago. He worked behind the lens in the most remote corners of Antarctica and specializes in exploring the world’s remote regions. His guiding career is spread two decades on all continents of the earth from the high Himalaya to the most remote corners of Antarctica. From guiding on Mt Everest, to the first ski descents in NZ. Last year he published a popular book called What Could Possibly Go Wrong? His adventures form the basis of his creative life, documenting expeditions and storytelling in various forms.
Educator. Hiker. Traveler. Writer. Mother of two. Nandini has worked with an all-woman team to develop a value-based curriculum for underprivileged children aged between 9 and 13 in Mumbai where she lives. The program is conducted in over 900 public schools. For over 35 years she has hiked and travelled in the Himalaya and has been editor of The Himalayan Journal for several years. Since 2012, a colleague and she have collected oral histories of the climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling, culminating in a book which is under publication. She has been jury member for the Banff and the Kekoo Naoroji book competitions as well as on children’s film festival selection panels and juries.
Sarah grew up on the move between France, Switzerland and the Western US. The bulk of her career has been spent at the intersection of Tech and Impact pioneering creator programs to elevate historically underrepresented voices and introduce new storytelling formats. Most recently Sarah’s work has been focused on building YouTube’s Racial Justice and Human Rights strategies to tackle the evolving challenges that arise on tech platforms. In parallel, as an adventure athlete and content creator, Sarah cofounded Well Travelled Collective, a female led production company focused on increasing female representation and committed to treading lightly on the environment. She has produced a number of award-winning short films and documentaries aiming to change the narrative in adventure filmmaking. When she’s not adventuring off the beaten path on rock and ice, Sarah lives in South Lake Tahoe California with her husband Timmy O’Neill and their son, Cody River.
Cáa-Poré/Cafuzo filmmaker, photographer and rock-climber based in Canada and Brazil. From the Cerrado of Brazil, Peruzzo is dedicated to critical and intersectional practices of film-based storytelling and land-based knowledge mobilization. His Master's work in Social Dimensions of Health examined the interconnectivity between identity, land and wellbeing. Grounded in community-led engagement, place-based protocols Peruzzo uses his work to inspire critical consciousness, inter-cultural sharing across themes of identity, relationship, and wellness.
Peruzzo has worked in across Cinematography, Photography and Editorial roles with collaboration with: APTN/CBC Indigenous (Editor: Cowichan Knitters [In Production]), CBC Originals (Editor: OKPIK: Little Village in the Arctic), VICE TV Viceland: RISE (On Site Liaison and Still Photographer: Krenak Nation, Brazil Episode), Telus: STORYHIVE (Dance Like Everybody's Watching (2020), TEMOSEN (2021), Cacao Road: Rain Own Productions (Cinematographer for Brazil, Guatemala and Belize [In Production]), The University of Victoria (SSHRC, Indigenous Language Revitalization, School of Child and Youth Care) and others.
He is the co-owner of UATÊ STORIED LEARNING and is also producing films featuring athletes across land-based sports.
Founder and organiser of Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour in China, Ocean Film Festival China Tour, ReelRock Film China Tour, European Outdoor Film Tour, Sunshine Running Film Festival, Hot Snow Film Festival, China Outdoor Film Festival, Banff China Outdoor Carnival, Banff China Adventure Filmmaker’s Workshop. Featured and reported by Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Trends Health, Marie Claire, Rayli, South China Morning Post, CCTV-1, CCTV-6, CCTV-13, China Daily and Beijing Youth. In 2019, she brought Free Solo into Chinese cinemas and hit the record for an imported documentary in Chinese cinema history. She was also a main character of the documentary film, Go with Your Gut. Her mission is to use films to promote outdoor sports and lifestyle. Her personal hobbies include sky diving, scuba diving, snowboarding, running (marathon, 100K), and mountaineering.