Spotlight on the Banff Mountain Film Fest
The Popular World Tour Returns to Santa Barbara for Two Nights
Forget the operatic national anthem that launches the Super Bowl. Who needs the spectacle of the Olympic opening ceremonies? Bring on the heart-pumping trailer and booming, god-like voice that herald the Banff Mountain Film Festival.
Next Tuesday and Wednesday, February 25 and 26, the festival’s world tour touches down in Santa Barbara, where we’ve been hosting screenings since 1992. Thanks to UCSB Arts & Lectures Associate Director Roman Baratiak, a longtime Banff buff who attends the festival in Canada annually, Santa Barbara has developed an enthusiastic and devoted fan base; it takes two nights at the 2,000-seat Arlington Theatre to accommodate the tour’s avid local following.
Of course, that’s a tiny fraction of the approximately 390,000 viewers who take part in over 840 screenings across 40 countries over the course of the tour, on top of about 17,000 festivalgoers who flood to Banff, Alberta, each November.
