By Marie-Renee Goulet

The festival stopped rolling this past Sunday. We’ll now have to wait another year for the next tales of distant journeys, ground-breaking expeditions, and remarkable achievements, told by adventurers, photographers, authors, and filmmakers from around the world.

Here are this year’s competition winners. I watched films on this list and did not write about them because I did not find them interesting, so we see that judging art or any creative pursuit is highly subjective.

The highest praise went to one I could hardly finish. I can see the story is worth telling, but the filmmakers could have done so in a fraction of the time. There were interminable shots of watching an older woman sleeping or slowly emptying a bucket of snails on a table. Having to wait for the last snail to crawl across a table until it crawls out of the shot was not compelling to me. And the movie is only 31 minutes long. I certainly understand that the film’s pace matched the simplicity and speed of the two women’s lives, but I must have missed things the jury saw. I loved and reviewed movies here that did not make the awards list, so this is when I miss the conversations I would have had if able to attend in person. Fingers crossed for 2021!

Banff Mountain Film Competition 2020 Winners including trailers, filmmaker details, and jury comments: View Details

Congratulations to the 2020 Banff Mountain Film Competition Winners

Then Comes the Evening | Grand Prize, Sponsored by MEC
Lost At Sea | Best Film – Exploration & Adventure, Sponsored by Devold
Cholitas | Best Film – Mountain Culture, Sponsored by Helly Hansen
The Cull – Scotland’s Deer Dilemma | Best Film – Mountain Environment & Natural History, Sponsored by Kupilka
The Wall Of Shadows | Best Film – Climbing, Sponsored by Clif Bar & Co.
Confessions of a Runner | Best Film – Mountain Sports, Sponsored by Storyblocks
Metanoia | Best Film – Snow Sports, Sponsored by Park Distillery
Voice Above Water | Best Mountain Short, Sponsored by Backcountry Lodges of BC Association
Godspeed, Los Polacos! | Best Mountain Feature, Sponsored by Oboz Footwear
My Last Day of Summer | Creative Excellence Award, Sponsored by Kootenay Mountain Culture Magazine
24 Leeches | Special Jury Mention
BEAR-LIKE (DER BÄR IN MIR) | Special Jury Mention

You can watch the award winners by following this link

There are trailers for each.

Leave a comment