STATE COLLEGE — The Centre County community was invited to stand on top of mountains, ski down slopes and go on an adventure in The State Theatre for the 48th annual Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour.
The festival, sponsored locally by Sierra Club Moshannon Group, is an annual event that shows a variety of short films. This year, the film festival was held on Friday, April 5, and Saturday, April 6.
According to Kelly Forest, one of the lead organizers of the festival, the event brings in a variety of community members — and often sells out The State Theatre.
“For people who love adrenaline, there’s a film for them,” Forest said. “For environmentalists, there’s a film for them.”
Each night, the festival showed four films ranging from five to 45 minutes, had an intermission and then concluded with four more films.
Both nights of the film festival were hosted by different emcees from the community.
The Saturday night emcee was Lara Fowler, director of Penn State sustainability and chief sustainability officer of Penn State.
Forest shared how Fowler has brought her children to the festival every year, noting the entire event had a “family feel.”
“It’s great to have people with different thoughts and ideas,” Forest said. “It shows who we are as a community.”
The films range from environmental themes to intense adventures. Forest said the organization works to select films that reach all audiences — from caving groups to environmentalists. She shared that “the fact that everybody is coming together to go to places in the world that you’d never be able to get to otherwise” spoke to the range of audiences reached during the festival.
Before and after the films, outdoor and sustainability groups were invited to set up a table with information about their organization to share with the festival’s attendees, Forest explained.
Ultimately, the festival is the main fundraiser for the Sierra Club Moshannon Group. The group is a dedicated grassroots environmental organization serving 11 counties in Pennsylvania.
The group has been a stop for the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour for nearly five decades, and Forest said she doesn’t see that connection ending.
“You kind of get hooked,” she said. “Every year, we keep going back.”
The post Film festival connects Centre County to adventure appeared first on StateCollege.com.