If you’re lucky enough to be in Banff, Alberta, Canada October 31 – November 8, 2009, then you’ll be able to check out the 34th annual Banff Mountain Film Festival and see the world’s best mountain and adventure films, videos, books, and lectures. Themes include adventure sports, the environment, and mountain culture.

For the rest of us, we’ll be able to see the abbreviated version of this event in many local towns and cities across the U.S., Canada, and the rest of the world! Every year following the festival, the highlights of the 9 day Canadian festival are condensed into a couple hours at about 500 local events in 30 countries. These local events provide a flavor of the Banff Mountain Film Festival, and are called “World Tours” or “Radical Reels Tours”. The World Tours include films from all of the themes shown at the event in Banff: adventure sports, the environment, and mountain culture.

The “Radical Reels Tour” purely features high adrenaline, action filled films such as rock climbing, ice climbing, kayaking, backcountry skiing, snowboarding, and BASE jumping.

I can’t wait to check out the tours! Here is the schedule of all of your local Banff Mountain Film Festival and Radical Reels events. There are many options, for example in CA alone there are 6 different locations showing the Radical Reels tour between September and October 2009, and 18 different towns showing the World Tour between March and April, 2010.

Just to get you as excited as I am about this event, check out the Radical Reels Tour film descriptions, courtesy of Banff Mountain Film Festival’s website:

All day Everyday
Canada, 2008, 11 minutes
Directed and produced by Kevin Sansalone
Website: www.sandboxland.com
Focus: Snowboarding
Unique footage, good riding and fun are the focus once again for this crew.
Shot in some amazing locations such as Whistler/Blackcomb and backcountry,
the Alberta Rockies, and Spain

Daily Strips
France, 2008, 6 minutes
Directed and produced by Dominique Janiszewski and Claude Adam
Website: www.ridetheplanets.com
Focus: Skiing, BASE jumping, Speedriding, Snowboarding, Alpine Climbing
The project? Five days to produce a short film that highlights five extreme sports: skiing, snowboarding, speed riding, mountain climbing and BASE jumping.
The result? Daily Strips.

Elements – A Slackline Adventure
Germany, 2008, 12 minutes
Directed and produced by Sebastian Runschke
Website: www.elements-film.com
Focus: Slacklining
The film follows a group of slackliners as they test their skills in amazing locations.

Latitudes
USA, 2008, 10 minutes
Directed and produced by Don Hampton
Website: www.dh-productions.com
Focus: Mountain biking
From the acclaimed creators of the “Chain Reaction” series and “Sevenvision” comes a progressive and soulful mountain-bike adventure.
Filmed in France and New Hampshire.

New World Disorder VIII: Smack Down
Switzerland, 2007, 12 minutes
Directed and produced by Derek Westerlund
Website: www.freeride-entertainment.com
Focus: Mountain biking
Welcome to world-wide mayhem! In this special edit for Radical Reels, some of the planet’s best freeride mountain bikers battle it out for the title of ultimate freeride champion! New World Disorder VIII: Smack Down is just that: a severe throw down of the sickest moves in the business.

Play Gravity
Switzerland, 2007, 15 minutes
Directed and produced by Samuel Gyger and Ueli Kestenholz
Website: www.playgravity.com
Focus: paragliding, snowboarding, speedriding
Amazing freeriding sequences from Alaska and breathtaking paragliding acrobatics show where snowboarder Ueli Kestenholz and paragliding pilot Mathias Roten got their basic skills for speedriding. They take freeriding into a new dimension. Impossible lines now are rideable by simply flying over massive cliffs and seracs. Fascinating footage is captured as they go for their ultimate goal: descending from the world-famous Swiss mountains the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau. BASE jumper Ueli Gegenschatz, mountaineer Stephan Siegrist and skydiver Stefan Klaus show their perspectives of the Eiger.

The Sharp End: BASE Solo
USA, 2008, 17 minutes
Directed and produced by Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen
Website: www.senderfilms.com
Focus: Solo Rock Climbing, BASE Jumping
Three amazing athletes with three different stories. Chris McNamara recounts his BASE jumping apprenticeship, Steph Davis makes a free solo climb of the Diamond, and Dean Potter pushes the limits by soloing the Eiger with a BASE rig as his security.

Something Stronger
Norway, 2007, 11 minutes
Directed and produced by Morten Gjerstad
Website: www.snowkitefilm.com
Focus: Snowkiting
From the same minds that brought you “Entropy” comes “Something Stronger”.
Take a journey to the frontier of snowkiting with the world’s elite riders as they explore the vast snow deserts of Norway, the windblown peaks of the Alps and the bottomless powder of North America. A high-definition film that fires on all cylinders to bring you big air, epic freeriding and cutting-edge freestyle.
Get ready for Something Stronger!