I recently had the opportunity to attend the international screening of the 2017 Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour.

I look forward to seeing this film festival each year and would love to head over to Banff in Canada to experience all the festivities that the festival presents.

This year's World Tour selection showcased over 2 hours of enthralling films with picturesque landscapes to heartfelt stories including one of the festival awards winning films Metronomic which won Best Film: Mountain Sports.

The festival screening of 8 films split into two halves with an intermission the night begins with following Ace Kavalee planning to celebrate his 60th birthday with a 650 km backpacking trip in Utah in United States of America. He is joined by many friends out on the hike but he has one special friend join him for the whole trip, his 10 year old Blue Heeler, Genghis Khan. Ace And The Desert Dog show the special bond between a man and his dog. This film was great and funny too.
The other films included Doing It Scared with climber Paul Pritchard returning to the Totem Pole in Tasmania, Australia 18 years after a catastrophic accident which left him partly paralysed. It's an amazing film about determination, acceptance, patience and humility and celebrates the joy of climbing.
The main feature film of the night is Voyagers without Trace which takes a look at the story of three Parisians kayaking the Colorado Rivers in 1938 and creating possibly the first colour adventure film. This was a great feature film as a retraces their steps and also catches up with their relatives to understand the journey. Metronomic is probably the craziest films of the night and you know the French could create an amazing blend of extreme daredevil dancers, musicians and acrobatics at great heights. Poumaka follows explorer and climber Mike Libecki and bouldering champion Angie Payne as they trek deep into the French Polynesian jungle hoping to summit the elusive Poumaka Tower.
We head to the slopes in the next film Iran: A Skier’s Journey which follows skiers Chad Sayers and Forrest Coots as they delve into Iran's culture and ski across the amazing slopes that Iran has to offer.
The Fledgings brings together professional climbers, Cedar Wright and Matt Segal as they take on a new challenge but not the kind of challenge you would think. They attempt to learn to paraglide. To add to the craziness of taking on the new challenge they embark on the ambitious objective to climb and paraglide off the highest peak in Mexico after only 6 months of flying experience. The final film of the night is Danny MacAskill's Wee Day Out where Danny explores the rural landscape around Edinburgh whilst showcasing his incredible riding and amazing tricks plus a touch of humour.

This year's selection for the World Tour screening offered a more diverse choice of films compared to last year's event which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Find out more about the Banff Mountain Film Festival and the International World Tour.