We are absolutely chuffed to bits that ‘Mira’ has been selected as a finalist for at the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival 2016. The winners will be announced on November 6th 2016 at the festival in Banff, Canada & I’m delighted to say that I will be there to join this festival that is presented by National Geographic & The North Face and has a 40 years proven track record as the world’s largest and one of the most prestigious mountain festivals in the world. As a mountain lover, then this is an area that I have wanted to visit for many years & so will be looking for any excuse for some mountain time while there.
If you had told us when I landed in Kathmandu to start film ‘Mira’ on February 23rd 2015 that we would be selected for BANFF the following year then I would have laughed. We had no brands or sponsors and certainly no distribution strategy. In fact, we had absolutely no funding for filming ‘Mira’. All we had was an inspiring story, a film-maker with a notebook full of ideas about how to capture it & a hungry unsponsored protagonist. That’s all you need really. Isn’t it?
“Chances are like leaves on a river, you have to grab them as they may never come again”
We didn’t follow the ‘A-Z of Film-Making’ as the film was made with a different purpose & was never intended to be a commercial project. We simply wanted to generate much needed income for the girls fund & mobile cinemas in Nepal [read about film funding here ] and so it is very humbling to be recognised by BANFF and others. On behalf of Mira, Richard, Lizzy, Subina & Niraj who appear in the film, we want to say a massive thank you to all those who believed in us and the value of this project before we had anything to show & gave so generously to the film fund.
Thank you.
Lloyd