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Outside Magazine, November 2008

A Brief History of Mountain Film
In November, the Banff Mountain Film Festival returns for its 33rd edition, with some 500 screenings in 30 countries. Here's a look at how high-altitude cinema arose from low-rent beginnings.

By Alex Crevar


1903
F. Ormiston-Smith captures one of the first high-altitude climbing shots for The Ascent of Mount Blanc. Another likely first for filmmakers: altitude sickness.

1946
Warren Miller buys an 8mm camera with his Navy discharge pay, lives out of a trailer in Sun Valley's parking lot, and films his friends in order to help improve their skiing.

1952
Italy's Trento Film Festival brings 39 movies and 1,800 people together for the first Festival of Mountain Cinema. A French film takes home top honors.

1953
The Conquest of Everest, chronicling Hillary and Norgay's climb, nets an Academy Award nomination. The Oscar goes to a Disney documentary.

1975
After a Japanese skier tumbles down the South Col and survives, the optimistically titled The Man Who Skied Down Everest wins the genre's first Oscar.

1998
Everest, filmed during the 1996 climbing season—in which eight people died on the mountain—grosses $128 million worldwide, a record for an Imax film.

2008
The Banff Mountain Film Festival (Nov­ember 1–9), North America's oldest, will show some 300 entries. The inaugural, in 1976, had just ten.




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