By Ashley M. Casey

Associate Editor

The Banff Mountain Film Festival comes to the Syracuse area Feb. 5 as a fundraiser for the CanTeen. The annual film festival, which first launched in Canada 1976, features short films about sports, the environment and mountain culture.

Each year, about 300 films vie for awards and for a spot on the Banff World Tour, which travels across Canada, the U.S. and nearly 20 other countries.

This year’s Syracuse Banff Mountain Film Festival features 11 short films with a total runtime of 128 minutes. There is an intermission after the first five films. Most of the films are less than 20 minutes long.

CanTeen Director Toni’Lyn Brauchle brought the Banff festival to North Syracuse in 2018. Brauchle said her brother works at Rochester Institute of Technology, which has been a stop on the Banff World Tour for more than 10 years.

“This would be a great fundraiser,” she recalled thinking.

“Years ago, Syracuse University used to host it, but it was student-run so it didn’t have a lot of consistency because students come and go,” Brauchle told the Star-Review in 2018.

Now in its third year in North Syracuse, the Banff festival has become one of the CanTeen’s tried-and-true fundraisers, along with the Gus Macker 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament and the spring spaghetti dinner.

Last year, the CanTeen was selected for the ABC Creative Group’s “24-Hour Brand Bash,” a rebranding package worth $89,000 in commercials, brochures, posters, a revamped website, billboard space and a series of videos introducing the CanTeen’s mission and its teen visitors.

“We got a good amount of free advertising,” Brauchle said, adding that the CanTeen will advertise the Banff festival with a billboard. “We were lucky to be able to do that.”

The Banff festival gives Central New Yorkers an option for an indoor cultural activity during the brutal winter, and the CanTeen is offering a deal on tickets for the students it serves.

“For young people in 8th to 12th grade, we’re doing a ‘buy one, get one’ ticket at the door the night of the event,” Brauchle said.

While much of CNY is in a wintry lull, the CanTeen team is keeping busy. More than 500 teens — mostly students at North Syracuse Junior High School or Cicero-North Syracuse High School — visit the center each year.

“Right now, we are in full summer field trip planning mode,” Brauchle said. “We’re trying to figure out if were going to do Darien Lake camping or Enchanted Forest camping. A lot of the amusement parks do these spring sales that expire in February.”

Brauchle is also working on annual reports for the CanTeen’s shareholders and stakeholders to highlight 2019 statistics and fundraising efforts.

With students taking Regents exams this week, the CanTeen is there to provide a safe space for kids to relax and recharge.

“The kids are going to start a new semester in about a week,” Brauchle said.

High school can be a stressful time, so the CanTeen is assisting with the North Syracuse Central School District’s suicide prevention efforts as well. The NSCSD is hosting “More Than Sad: Suicide Prevention for Parents” at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 22, and the CanTeen is promoting “P.S.: I Love You Day” as part of the Positivity Project.

“P.S.: I Love You Day is another piece to the prevention of suicide information. [It’s] letting people know that you care,” Brauchle said.

If you can’t make the Banff festival, community members can still support the CanTeen by donating at canteencny.com. The organization also has wish lists for games, snacks and supplies via Amazon and Walmart.

If you go

What: Syracuse Banff Mountain Film Festival

When: Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; event starts at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5

Where: North Syracuse Junior High School, 5353 West Taft Road

Info: Tickets cost $17 up through the day before of the event. Tickets will be available at the door for $20, cash or credit. Visit eventbrite.com to purchase tickets. Call the CanTeen at 315-699-1391 for more information.

Film lineup: “Charge,” “The Running Pastor,” “Safe Haven,” “Life of Pie,” “Spectre Expedition: Mission Antarctica,” “Danny Daycare,” “The Ladakh Project,” “Surfer Dan,” “The Imaginary Line,” “Gone Tomorrow: Kentucky Ice Climbing,” “Hors Piste​“; total runtime of 128 minutes.