Jen Randall’s film ‘Psycho Vertical, based on the book of the same name by Andy Kirkpatrick, has won the Best Climbing Film award at the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival held in Alberta.
The film follows Britain’s unlikeliest hero-mountaineer and funny-man, Andy Kirkpatrick on an 18 day solo ascent of El Capitan, Yosemite, while exploring themes of identity, fatherhood, and how our pasts shape us.
Jury member and filmmaker Paul Diffley commented on why Psycho Vertical was chosen: “There were lots of great climbing films this year, making it was a really tough category to judge. However all the jury agreed that one film in this category stood out because of the honesty of the protagonist and its refreshing filmmaking style. In this era of social media, our feeds are full of professional athletes ‘living the dream’. This film digs a lot deeper. The filmmaker successfully employs some unorthodox techniques and the filmmaking feels very fresh, at times even bordering on experiancental. It is a ‘warts and all’ profile that leaves an audience with a true rendering of a well-known climber and a film which transcends its category.”
Other winners at this year’s Banff include ‘The Last Honey Hunter’ in the Mountain Culture category, and ‘Dirtbag: The Legend of Fred Beckey’ in the Feature-Length Mountain Film category.
Watch the trailer for ‘Psycho Vertical’ here.