To support the outdoors, I am suggesting you head inside for the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Venture Outdoors, an amazing organization that exists to make it easier for Pittsburghers to do things outdoors is responsible for bringing the Banff Mountain Film Festival here to Pittsburgh. This is big, this is huge!!! Even if you aren’t a lover of the outdoors, you will appreciate this film festival. So if you love the outdoors, or if you are a film lover who loves being indoors this is the perfect event for you.

I have been watching and loving ski films, back in the day family vacations were about skiing and then when we had skiied enough or I was too sunburned to ski any more (WEAR SUNSCREEN!!!) we would sit inside and watch films of people doing amazing things on skis. When I moved back to Pittsburgh I realized that Pittsburgh doesn’t make it on to many of the ski film tours.

I had heard about this Banff Festival, probably from my friend Sheerin, who I am sure is skiing in France as I write this. So thankfully the folks at Venture Outdoors have been bringing the Banff Film Festival to Pittsburgh. And because Pittsburgh is awesome, it has even sold out in years past. I attended the film festival 2 years ago and I know I tried to attend last year. It is way more than just ski movies. I normally would not sit down watch a movie with subtitles about mountain climbing. But I saw an excellent film about some guys that climbed a mountain using climbing equipment that was 100 years old. Once again – Venture Outdoors helping me to try new things.

The Banff Center is a “globally respected arts, cultural, and educational institution and conference facility” located in Alberta, Canada. Each year they assemble a massive mountain film festival which then goes on a world tour around the globe bringing amazing films, these are films that cannot be found on Netflix, to outdoor lovers and film lovers in places like Pittsburgh.

The Banff Film Festival will be here for 2 nights this week, Thursday and Friday, with different films each evening. You can find a complete schedule and details at http://www.ventureoutdoors.org/banfffilmfest.asp

I really can’t say enough about Venture Outdoors. Not only are they an organization dedicated to getting Pittsburgh to spending more time outside, but they are a great group of people. I personally owe a lot to venture outdoors because one of my favorite jobs of the past few years was a result of a meeting at a brunch and hike for Venture Outdoors. But I will go on and on about Venture Outdoors another time.