Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour

Tonight the Banff Mountain Film Festival is playing in San Francisco.

This is one of the highlights of the year for me. There will be four hours worth of films ranging from 10-15 minute shorts, to 90-minute features. They range from social/political movies, to food for adrenaline junkies. Naturally, I go both ways.

...on this one.

One of my favorite films was shown in 2002 called Escape over the Himalayas — Tibet’s Children on Their Journey into Exile. This was a documentary of several mountain "smugglers" who were paid by Tibetains to smuggle their children into exile in Nepal. The Chinese occupation has been determined to destroy Tibetan culture and assymilate them by forcing illiteracy on their children. If they can't read or write, they can't pass on their ways to future generations.

This movie shows step-by-step how three men lead and carried a group of Tibetan children over 20,000 ft passes into Nepal, where they will join a community of Tibetan exiles that will educate them in their traditional ways. These routes are extremely dangerous even for expert mountaineers, and they must successfully climb and descend without being detected. It is a story of great courage, cunning, determination and resolve. On one end, the human spirit is portrayed as a horrible, oppressing ogre, but as one carried from the beginning of the film to the end, the human spirit gains hope through this intrepid journey. Unlike Faust, who had to descend into the pit of hell for his salvation, our protagonists must ascend and conquer the highest points on earth to gain their freedom.

It's a must see.

Also, there was a cool movie of a guy that base-jumped off the Eiger with a bat suit.

Full review this weekend. I promise this time.