23mins, Director: Jordan Manley, Canada, NZ Premiere, Subtitles: No
Due to climate change, by 2050 ski seasons will be markedly shorter. Lower elevations will receive significantly less snowfall. Two veteran professional skiers contemplate the impact their love for adventure has on the very environment that sustains and fulfils them. As they peer into the future, they realise there is a more sustainable path ahead, but it won’t be easy.

2.5 Million – Promo Clip (Long) from Banff Mountain Film Festival on Vimeo.

2.5 Million
25mins, Director: Ben Page, UK, NZ Premiere, Subtitles: No

Compelled by Jack London’s assertion that ‘any man who is a man can travel alone’, Ben drops everything to fat-bike the world, completely alone. He encounters the threat of wolves, well below-freezing temperatures, and solitude. The Frozen Road is an honest reflection on a solo trip; of the wonder, terror and frustration he experienced when riding through the unforgiving emptiness of one of the world’s ‘last great wildernesses’.

Foodless Odyssey
11mins, Director: Anthill Films, Canada, NZ Premiere, Subtitles: No

A longtime dream of mountain biker Matt Hunter, the idea was to bike-pack through hundreds of kilometres of wilderness on the remote Island of Haida Gwaii, living entirely off the land. The rules were simple: we would carry all the survival tools we needed to bike, fish, hunt and camp…. but absolutely no food. Everything we would consume for the week-long journey would be harvested from the land.

19mins, Director: Joey Schusler, USA, NZ Premiere, Subtitles: Yes
Kids and bikes; wherever you are in the world, they go together. The chaotic streets of Kathmandu may not seem like a typical breeding ground for world-class mountain bikers, but then again nothing is typical about Rajesh (RJ) Magar. Since learning to ride on a beat-up clunker, to becoming the four-time National Champion at age 21, RJ’s story is one of boundless childhood dreaming and unstoppable determination, forged from junkyard scraps and tested on the rugged trails of the mighty Himalaya.

Will Gadd and Gavin McClurg grab a thermal air lift towards Mt. Robson and then set flight for the Canada-US border. Along the way the paragliders push the sport of paragliding, or more precisely ‘vol-bivy’, as they journey 640 kilometres above the Canadian Rockies, hopping between seriously exposed landing sites where they’d spend the night. A 35-day journey across rugged landscapes which is the longest air journey by a paraglider ever recorded.