At 50 years strong, the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival is celebrating its golden anniversary with a headliner who embodies everything the festival stands for: boldness, creativity, and a relentless drive toward the unknown.
Christina “Lusti” Lustenberger — former Olympian turned pioneering ski mountaineer — takes center stage this year fresh off a streak of history-making first descents all over the globe.
“It’s been a whirlwind of really wild pursuits for me, and then just putting my foot to the ground working on these film projects,” the Canadian athlete told GearJunkie. “Now I’m ready to celebrate.”
The festival runs November 1–9 at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Banff, Alberta, with two films about Lusti’s recent exploits bookending the lineup. After that, the film festival will come to cities throughout the U.S. and Canada. While Lustenberger may be the headliner, she’s one of many women dominating this year’s festival about the biggest achievements — and most compelling stories — in mountaineering.
‘Dr. Seuss Kind of Stuff’
Robson, premiering Nov. 1, chronicles Lusti’s attempt, with French alpinist Guillaume Pierrel, to make the first descent of the South Face of Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies at 12,972 feet.
“I had been dreaming of, and thinking about, this line for 10 years,” Lusti said.
Mount Robson is both a cornerstone of Canadian mountaineering and Lusti’s home peak: She grew up in the basin just west of the Rockies. Director Philip Forsey weaves in stories from past expeditions, highlighting the pioneers who’d gone before. “It’s a tribute to the history, and to the mountain itself,” Lusti said.
Trango screens on Nov. 8, during the festival’s closing weekend. The film narrates Lusti’s first ski descent — with Jim Morrison and team — of Great Trango Tower, a 20,623-foot granite monolith in Pakistan’s Karakoram range. Due to its remoteness, sheer verticality, and severe weather, Great Trango Tower is among the most technical (and intimidating) peaks on the planet.
“I’d never seen a line like that, like otherworldly Dr. Seuss kind of stuff,” Lusti said. “It’s hard to imagine a mountain as intricate and complex.”
She praised director Leo Hoorn for capturing the line’s scale and surreal beauty: “It’s going to look so sick on the big screen,” she added.
Unlike Mount Robson, Great Trango Tower had no history of ski mountaineering. Lusti was the first to even imagine it, let alone attempt it. The objective was 2 years in the making and included a failed 2023 attempt. “Doing something visionary in one of the world’s great ranges, there’s a sense of pride with that,” Lusti said. “Now to come home and share it is pretty incredible.”
A Fresh Lineup of Banff Films
A total of 87 films will screen at this year’s festival, including 17 world premieres, 10 North American premieres, and 29 Canadian premieres.
The Banff Centre received hundreds of submissions, and this year’s selections are among the strongest ever, said Joanna Croston, the festival’s director of mountain culture. “Adventure film is no longer the small niche genre it once was,” Croston told GearJunkie.
Along with Lusti’s films, one of the most eagerly anticipated screenings is The Finisher, the story of Jasmin Paris’s groundbreaking achievement in 2024, when she became the first woman in the Barkley Marathons’ 38-year history to complete the grueling endurance event. There’s also Chasing Time, photographer James Balog’s latest film. It explores time and immortality against the backdrop of his life’s work to bring compelling visual evidence of climate change.
Adventure film fans are also stoked to see Girl Climber, Emily Harrington’s frank account of pushing herself in the male-dominated world of elite big-wall climbing. In Best Day Ever, the film follows the progress of adaptive mountain bikers Allie Bianchi and Greg Durso. These athletes tackle the first fully adaptive trail network on earth, located in Vermont’s Green Mountains.
Women Dominate Film Festival
Both Croston and Lusti noted a surge in adventure films featuring — and created by — women. Last year, more than half of Banff’s award-winning titles were directed or produced by women. In 2025, for the first time ever, female filmmakers will outnumber men in the festival’s flagship Adventure Filmmakers Workshop.
It’s that momentum that Lusti said she’s most excited to see.
“There’s so many sports where females are at the leading edge,” she said. “I really want to see the next generation of women come blazing through the f*****g door.”
Over the next few months, the Banff Film Festival will go on tour to cities throughout Canada and the U.S., along with several international premieres. Visit the festival website to view its screening schedule and find the closest premiere to where you live.
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