40 films, 12 of them award winning, will make up the first ever Pakistan International Mountain Film Festival (PIMFF) in Lahore, which kicks off on June 13.

Some 80 countries around the world submitted 500 films, out of which PIMFF selected 40 films for screening at Lahore’s Alhamra Arts Council. Delegates, including festival directors from other mountain film festivals, filmmakers, adventurers and journalists from all over the world are going to attend this fest.

Interactive talk sessions by foreign film directors, writers will form part of the festival, along with a photography exhibition, themed "Spectacular Pakistan", at the Alhamra’s art gallery.

Wajahat Malik, the Managing Director of Eyebex Films and Chairman of PIMFF, says, "If you want an event to be recognised internationally, then Lahore is the place in Pakistan."

According to Malik, an international mountain film festival will promote tourism in Pakistan, create awareness about the mountain people and their issues, and build affinity for foreign cultures and peoples across the world.

Unequivocally, Pakistan is a land of varied and unique landscape, which has the steepest gradient starting from the Arabian Sea till the Karakorum Mountains. Pakistan’s northern part of the world is known as the "roof of the world", with highest mountain peaks and longest glaciers.

"Unfortunately, over the years, we haven’t been able to showcase the grandeur of our mountains to a wider international audience to promote tourism and portray the positive and incredible side of Pakistan," says Malik.

Although cynics can postulate that such initiatives may not make much difference, essentially because of terrorism that has led Pakistan to perpetual darkness, adventurers would still come to Pakistan. There is also a likelihood that their number may surge. The approach of tourists is different compared to adventurers; tourists still might vacillate to visit Pakistan.

Tourists in the rest of the world get themselves insured before visiting any country. Unfortunately, majority of the international insurance companies simply don’t insure people who are visiting Pakistan. But, according to Malik, "real travellers don’t even think about insurance. They just bag-pack and there they go."

In the last decade or so, Nepal’s tourism has bolstered merely by conducting such festivals. Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival is the only fiesta that takes place in Asia where they use this platform efficaciously to promote their mountains.

Wajahat Malik says emphatically, "It is high time that the state of Pakistan makes an effort to promote its tourism and better its image in the world".

Malik, who is also an adventure travel filmmaker, conceived the idea of the mountain film festival a few years ago. "It was always sort of a dream and didn’t come about until I met Maryam Cheema, who is the PIMFF Director".

Malik and Cheema researched day and night for this festival, and in order to learn the ropes of how to organise a mountain film festival of international level, we travelled to Nepal in December 2014 to attend the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (KIFF)."

PIMFF is a joint venture of Eyebex Films and Punjab Government, and is the first endeavour of its kind that will become a platform for showcasing the beauty of Pakistan’s mountains, culture and people.

Malik says, "The Tourism Development Corporation of Punjab, City District Government Lahore and Parks and Horticulture Authority also played a pivotal role in executing the project alongside Eyebex Films."

Amid the 40 films, five Pakistani films would be screened at the PIMFF. Famous faces of Pakistan, such as Mustansar Hussain Tarar, Salman Rashid, legendary climber colonel Sher Khan are among the luminaries that are appearing at the event.

Since foreign filmmakers, tour operators, travel writers and adventurers are gathering on one platform, there is an opportunity for the people attending the festival to learn from each other and collaborate on potential projects that may arise through this networking exercise.

The festival is not only confined to mountain films, within its genre there are many other categories -- fiction, documentaries, animation, mountain cultures, adventure sports and, most importantly, environment.

Films that are going to be screened are made by filmmakers from Mexico to Europe to Asia to New Zealand… So, essentially it covers the whole world. The only hitch is that not all the films are in English, however, they are subtitled.

For locals there is an entertainment value and quite a learning experience as well. Personally, I think this initiative may replenish Pakistan’s dwindling coffers and fortunes.

On the next page: Pick of the festival

Pick of the festival

There is an impressive array of films that will be screened on June 13-14, 2015 in Lahore, ranging from documentary to fiction. Here are the highlights of what is coming — from a 1909 classic silent mountain film to adventure sport films.

Ascension

It is the tale of two determined climbers who attempt to transport a religious statue to the peak of a snow-covered mountain. Whilst initial readings of that synopsis may lead an audience to assume this is going to be a film of a serious nature, the storyline quickly reveals something quite different. Perfectly puncturing its sombre tone with some laugh-out-loud slapstick moments, this animated film is a visual wonder, a testament to determination, and a promise of four or five chuckles.

The Cave Connection - Into The Unknown

This film has earned kudos not only in the country where it was shot, New Zealand, but also across Europe and North America. The Cave Connection brings viewers along with Kieran Mckay, one of New Zealand’s most accomplished cavers, and his team of adventurers. Their almost impossible goal: to discover the deepest cave in the Southern Hemisphere by finding a connection between two daunting cave systems, facing hazards like the sudden inrush of water and a total lack of communication with the world outside.

The Cave Connection…  has been honoured with key awards at the NZ Mountain Film Festival as well as Switzerland’s Les Diablerets, where it won the top prize in the ‘Exploits and Adventures’ category.

Karun

Tom Allenand and Leon McCarron set off into the snowy Zagros Mountains in south-western Iran. For the next five weeks, they followed the river Karun from its humble, trickling origins in the mountains all the way to its terminus in the Persian Gulf, by which stage it becomes an international waterway and nearly a kilometre wide. Initially, they travelled on foot and then by packraft. A change of plan led them to acquiring some bicycles for the third leg, and they finished the trip through a mixture of walking and jogging their way to the Gulf.

Karakoram Highway

Three experienced paragliding pilots, Thomas de Dorlodot, Horacio Llorens and Hernan Pitocco arrive in the Karakoram mountain range in northern Pakistan aiming to break records. Their journey takes them deep into the mountain communities of Pakistan, where they are welcomed by the local people, invited into a way of life that has existed for centuries. Mixing sheer distance and height with astounding aerobatics, the team revels in the freedom that these vast landscapes offer. As they fly cross-country surrounded by alpine scenery and reaching distances of over 200km, it becomes apparent that in this remote corner of the world they have found some of the earth’s finest paragliding.

Talking to the Air: The Horses of the Last Forbidden Kingdom

The film takes us not only to the top of the world but blows our heads off once we get there, drawing us into a land beyond time and the medieval culture of Mustang in Nepal along the border of China. This is the Shangri-La of horsedom, where wealth is measured in hooved gold and the quality of a man and his history is reflected in the honour he shows to his herd. As deftly as its horses negotiate Mustang’s mountainous terrain, this film carries you through an ancient landscape still raw in unpolluted beauty and home to a culture simple in materials but rich in spirit, reminding us once again that the history of the horse is forever parallel to our own.  The stable doors of this forbidden kingdom have been flung open.

La Spedizione

It’s a 37-minute long silent film, which was shot on K2 in 1909. It’s a rare film that was specially given to PIMFF for screening by the mountain museum in Turin, Italy. It is a unique film and will certainly be a treat to watch.