Mountain Film Festival to feature 32 films

The Last Expedition, a film portrait of Wanda Rutkiewicz, the greatest woman Himalayan climber of all time by Polish director Eliza Kubarska, will mark the official opening of the festival at Ljubljana's Cankarjev Dom.

The films have been selected among 85 entries from all over the world. They will be considered for awards by an international judging panel comprising Bulgarian journalist and climber Tanja Ivanova, Slovenian author and filmmaker Mojca Volkar Trobevšek and Swiss director and alpinist Fulvio Mariani.

The festival will also feature lectures, talks with filmmakers and presentations of mountaineering books.

American climber Jackson Marvell will talk about his Piolet d'Or-winning ascent of the North Face of Jannu, top Slovak climber Miška Izakovičová will present her remarkable feats in the big walls, and Slovenian mountaineers Ana Baumgartner, Urša Kešar, Anja Petek and Patricija Verdev will present their high-profile Himalayan expedition to Lalung I.

Some of the highlights on the big screen include Nuptse: Touching the Intangible, an award-winning film about the first ascent of a difficult alpine route on the south face of Nuptse that earned French climbers Helias Millerioux, Frederic Degoulet and Benjamin Guigonnet the Piolet d'Or award.

The American film Jamie Logan: All In presents the story of a trans climber who pioneered some of the most challenging alpine and rock climbs of the 1960s and 1970s as Jim, but now in her 70s, Jamie reflects on her career in the vertical world.

Hielo Andino by Chilean director Asier Akil shows the beauty of the high Andean mountain range through ice climbing.

Climbing films have been made all over the world, including in Angola, where a small artificial wall in the middle of the Angolan village of Cumbira changes children's world and climbing becomes their Disneyland. Meanwhile, Ruta Divisadero takes viewers to the Chilean climbing paradise of Coyhaiqu.

American films from the Reel Rock series are a constant feature of the festival, and this year there will be five of them, including The Puzzle with Brette Harrington in Canada, Climbing Never Die with Matt Groom in Ukraine and With My Heart with Sachi Amma in Japan.

The mountains, sports and adventure category will see film Alfa, a Dutch-Swiss-Slovenian co-production, mostly shot in the Slovenian mountains.

Films about mountain nature and culture include Guerreras, a Columbian film about seven young women climbers who share stories of grief, eating disorders, domestic violence, motherhood, and bicultural identity.