Kiwi adventures on the big screen
Now in its 24th year, NZ Mountain Film and Book Festival will return this week and next. It features 63 awe-inspiring films – including 18 NZ-made productions and 17 world premieres – and 11 speakers. It kicks off this Friday in Wānaka before heading to Queenstown.
Whitney Oliver from the festival is excited to present this year’s programme and their keynote speaker. French alpinist and filmmaker Sébastien Montaz-Rosset will be here for the event, discussing his work mountaineering, skiing, guiding and more.
“I think it’ll be a really cool perspective because he lends both the really elite athlete perspective but also the filmmaking side – bringing both those worlds together,” Oliver says. “He’s done huge adventures in the big mountains and keeping up with big mountain athletes while also carrying a camera.”
There are two local speakers on the lineup, too, Petrouchka Steiner-Grierson and Matherson Brown. Steiner-Grierson has been at the forefront of exploratory ski mountaineering in the Southern Alps – she’s a mountain guide and a ski mountaineer and athlete, who has completed some amazing ski descents. Brown has been based in Cromwell. In 2024 he became the fastest person to summit all 50 US state high points in just 20 days, 14 hours and four minutes. The previous record of 21 days and nine hours had been achieved thanks to the use of a private jet.
“Matherson did it all himself, with his dad driving him around in a van and taking commercial flights. He’s going to come and talk about that and just show us that any of us can do this, and we don’t have to be sponsored mega athletes to get out and do it. We can work hard and make it happen.”
There were nearly 270 films submitted this year, which Oliver says were of such high standard it made it really difficult to narrow them down to the final programme. Taking home the Best NZ Made Film award this year is 100 Days in Fiordland by Dan Sutherland, which sees three kayakers spend 100 winter days deep in Fiordland National Park, sea kayaking, hunting, fishing, and searching for unexplored whitewater in one of New Zealand’s most demanding wilderness expeditions.
“Every year I think, are we going to see something new this year? Because how many ways can you do an adventure, but they always do find new ways to go on adventures.”
The films feature people that are constantly pushing the limits of what we can do, which is exciting, inspiring and causes the audience and judges to be surprised each year. This year’s Spirit of Adventure Award went to The Pole of Inaccessibility by Danny Warley and Ned Brannigan, where a paraglider embarks on a multi-day bivouac flight across New Zealand’s Southern Alps, navigating glaciers and vast wilderness to reach the country’s most remote point, the Pole of Inaccessibility. He then faces the challenge of getting back out.
“I think one of the cool things this year is just how inspiring our New Zealand athletes are. We’ve got our mountain adventurers with these two great local speakers, but also in the New Zealand Made film category, there’s just some really cool adventures happening that are pushing the limits.”
The New Zealand Mountain Film and Book Festival programme will take place in Wānaka from Friday, 19 June to Tuesday, 23 June and at Queenstown Memorial Centre on Thursday, 25 and Friday, 26 June. You can check out the full programme, find out more info and grab tickets at mountainfilm.nz
