The educational arts institution The Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, started The Banff Mountain Film Festival in 1976, featuring 10 films that showcased mountain sports and culture. This year, over 300 films entered the competition and the best ones are making their way across the world, visiting 305 cities in 20 countries.

For the 11th consecutive year, The Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour is coming to Lawrence, appearing at Liberty Hall Sept. 6 – 8. Friday and Saturday night’s events sold out right away, so for the first time, a Thursday night screening has been added to the mix.

Sunflower Outdoor & Bike Shop is hosting the event, which is a benefit for the KU Rock Climbing Club and the Lawrence Mountain Bike Club. Each host in each city has a say in which shorts will be screened for each specific audience. This means that the local bike shop had a hand in the programming for Lawrence, which includes films about rock climbing, mountain biking, off-road unicycling, and speed flying, among others. Each night starts at 7p.m., features a different lineup of films, and the cost is $8.50 per night.

Here are some highlights:

“SPOIL” (44 minutes, Environment/Photography)
(Watch trailer here.)

Filmmakers Trip Jennings and Andy Maser won Best Film-Mountain Environment at Banff. “Spoil” follows the International League of Conservation Photographers and the Gitga’at First Nation people of British Columbia as they search for the rare and elusive spirit bear in the Great Bear Rainforest. A proposed oil pipeline is threatening these beautiful all-white (but not albino) bears, and the ILCP wants to photograph the bears and their unique temperate rain forest ecosystem in an effort to oppose the pipeline. A host of other unique animals — including genetically unique wolves and an array of marine mammals — live on the north coast of British Columbia, and the pipeline will spoil the coastal ecosystem and indigenous communities that have coexisted for there for thousands of years.

“Kadoma” (42 minutes, Exploration/Kayaking)

Saturday night features “Kadoma,” which won Best Film – Exploration and Adventure at the festival. The synposis reads: “Kayaker Hendri Coetzee was a living legend: he paddled the length of the Nile, walked nearly a thousand miles along Tanzania’s coastline, and survived a cannibal attack when he soloed the Congo River from its source to sea.” In December 2010, American pro kayakers Chris Korbulic and Ben Stookesbury followed Coetzee on his last expedition — into the Democratic Republic of Congo for a first descent of the dangerous Lukuga River.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAOVhGDSuco&feature=plcp

“Cold” (19 minutes, Mounaineering)

The winner of the Grand Prize & Best Film-Climbing awards at Banff, “Cold” shows Friday night. This harrowing short follows Boulder-based alpinist Cory Richards and climbing partners Simone Moro and Dennis Urubko while climbing the 13th-highest mountain on Earth (the 26,362 ft. Himalayan peak Gasherbrum II). The winter temperatures were as low as as low as -51 degrees, and Richards’ raw honesty as he turns the camera on himself has touched a nerve with filmgoers and adventurers around the world. According to the folks at Sunflower Bike, “This film deftly captures the interwoven roles of pain, fear, and doubt – and reveals a harrowing descent that amplifies their isolation and exposure.”

“All.I.Can: The Short Cut” (11 minutes, Snow Sports)

Also showing Friday night is a short version of the feature-length film “All.I.Can,” which contains some stunning time-lapse visuals and won Best Feature-length Mountain Film at Banff. The cutting-edge group known as Sherpa Cinema from British Columbia made “All.I.Can,” which contains some amazing natural cinematography, and groundbreaking skiing from Chile to Greenland.