BANFF Film Fest Fayetteville

Ozarks Outdoors, a co-sponsor of BANFF Mountain Film Festival's World Tour's stop in Fayetteville Arkansas, drove up to the U of A's Global Campus Building for BANFF on Friday, September 14th.

The lights at BANFF dim before the show.

At about 3 on Friday afternoon we loaded up the University of the Ozarks' vans, and hit the road.

"Are we there yet?"

Rafael Luna, a member of Ozarks Outdoors is also taking pictures.

"Are we there yet?"

Once in Fayetteville, before getting to the actual film screening, we stopped by DamGoode Pies on the Fayetteville Square for some dinner. I got my food last, of course.

I hadn't gotten my food yet.

Still nothing, plenty of time to play with the focus.

Anyway, we ate in a hurry, and showed up to the U of A's Global Campus with only a few minutes before BANFF Mountain International Film Fest kicked off it's Fayetteville portion of the tour.

BANFF's Sign Outside of 2. East Center Street, Fayetteville Arkansas,

better known as the University of Arkansas's Global Campus Building.

We hurriedly got inside, found some seats, and prepared to have our minds blown by some awesome movies.

The house was packed.

Some of the Ozarks Outdoors members passed the time before the show by reading their program.

Once the lights dimmed and the video came up, we watched a total of seven of the many movies entered into BANFF Film Fest, and they were all awesome. My personal favorite was ALL.I.CAN, of which we only saw a short version that combined some excellent cinematography, amazing editing and crazy skiing, and threw in a clever little story too.

Also on my short list was a documentary called Chasing Water, which followed the Colorado River from its start to its finish, but with a uniquely personal perspective.

The feature of the night was On the Trail of Ghengis Khan: The Last Frontier, which followed an Australian man from like Kazakhstan through the Steppes, Crimea and the Caucuses and into Eastern Europe, where he journeyed over the Carpathian Mountains and into Hungary. Oh, did I mention that his journey was originally supposed to take 18 months, but ended up being over 3 and a half years? Yeah. He went on this journey with 3 horses and a dog, and along the way got to know a group of nomads, and a whole lot more. We only saw about 45 minutes of this one, but the film in its entirety is 4 hours long, and purported to be worth every minute.

Anyway, great night in Fayetteville, and great films and great food to go with it. I'd recommend BANFF to anybody interested in filmmaking, the outdoors, or generally being an interesting human being.