From a basement brainstorming session among restless climbers to one of the world’s most prestigious adventure film festivals, the Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival has spent five decades inspiring audiences to push boundaries, embrace the wild, and celebrate the stories that emerge from our planet’s most breathtaking landscapes.
A Mountain of Memories: The History of a Festival
The story begins in 1975, when climbers Chic Scott, Patsy Murphy, Evelyn Moorehouse, and Betty Ware gathered in a Banff basement with an ambitious dream: to create North America’s first mountain film festival. With help from John Amatt, who had experienced Italy’s legendary Trento Festival firsthand, they transformed their vision into reality.
On October 31, 1976, the first Festival took place and was an immediate success that exceeded all expectations. Organisers had planned to use the 250-seat Margaret Greenham Theatre, but 450 enthusiastic mountaineers and adventure lovers showed up clamouring for admission. The venue was hastily changed to the larger Eric Harvie Theatre, where classics like Mike Hoover’s Solo and Roraima: The Lost World kept audiences riveted.
By 1977, the Festival became competitive with 19 film entries, and in 1978 it expanded to two days, establishing the first weekend in November as its traditional home. The late 1970s brought legendary validation when Academy Award winner F.R. “Budge” Crawley joined as Chairman of the judging panel. The 1979 Grand Prize went to Fred Padula’s lyrical El Capitan, featuring an unforgettable shot of the moon passing behind climbers on Yosemite’s vertical wall.
The 1980s saw the Festival mature into a global institution. In 1981, the Best of the Festival Film Tour launched across Canada, while legendary mountaineers like Peter Habeler and Sir Chris Bonington graced the Banff stage. When Bernadette McDonald took over as Festival Director in 1988, she ushered in an era of growth and innovation.
Through the 1990s, the tour expanded dramatically from three cities to 38 screenings across 27 cities. In 1994, the Book Festival was established, recognising that mountain stories deserve to be told in every medium. The decade featured climbing icons like Alison Hargreaves and Catherine Destivelle, while 1999’s “Radical Rides” program signalled the Festival’s embrace of high-adrenaline adventure sports.
The new millennium brought the 25th anniversary celebration and publication of Voices From the Summit in partnership with National Geographic. The 2000s introduced initiatives like the Adventure Filmmakers Workshop and the Mountain Writing Program, cementing Banff’s role as an incubator for adventure storytelling.
The 2010s introduced a new generation of climbing superstars to Banff audiences. Alex Honnold made his first appearance in 2010 and returned in 2015 for a memorable arm-wrestling match with Greg Child on stage. The Festival championed diverse voices, featuring adaptive climber Paul Pritchard and celebrating Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, the first woman to summit all 8000-metre peaks without supplemental oxygen.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, the Festival demonstrated its resilience by pivoting online and launching the Banff on Demand streaming platform, ensuring that mountain stories could still inspire audiences even when gathering in person wasn’t possible.
The Festival Goes Down Under: Australian Adventures
While the Festival was capturing hearts in North America, it was also building a devoted following on the other side of the world. In 2006, Jemima Robinson started hosting screenings that would transform the Festival’s presence in the region. The real breakthrough came in 2009 when Adventure Reels was founded and took the Australian tour to new heights, growing it from just 7 screenings to the 50+ venues that pack houses across Australia today. For Australian adventure enthusiasts, the annual tour has become a cherished tradition, bringing the best of Banff’s curated programming to audiences from Sydney to Perth and everywhere else inbetween.
Throwback Style: The 50th Anniversary Limited Edition Tee
To celebrate this golden anniversary, the Festival is paying tribute to its roots with a retro-inspired limited edition t-shirt. The design takes its cues from the iconic poster for the 2nd Annual Festival, capturing the bold, adventurous spirit of those early years. Only 50 limited edition ringer tees have been produced (throughout Australia)—one for each year of the Festival’s history. These classic white shirts with black print are instant collector’s items, combining vintage aesthetics with the timeless appeal of Banff’s mountain legacy. There will also be plenty of the purple and camel-coloured tees with the same design on sale at the screenings.
Looking Ahead from 50 Years High
As the Festival celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025, it’s drawing over 21,000 attendees to Banff and continuing to innovate with events like the Fire and Ice Symposium: The Stories We Tell, held in collaboration with the UN International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. From that cold basement meeting in 1975 to today’s world-renowned cultural institution, the Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival has remained true to its founding vision: to celebrate the human spirit’s endless quest for adventure and to inspire audiences to forge their own paths into the mountains and beyond.
Here’s to 50 epic years—and to all the stories, summits, and screenings yet to come.
Tickets to the 2026 Australian Tour of the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival will be going on sale soon HERE
