Speakers Announced for Vicennial Anniversary of the NZ Mountain Film & Book Festival

The iconic NZ Mountain Film & Book Festival will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year with a line-up of inspirational adventurers from New Zealand and Australia.

Festival Director Mark Sedon, who founded the festival in 2002 along with his wife Jo, says he’s always excited to announce the speakers, and that bringing world-class speakers and adventurers to the Queenstown Lakes region in order to inspire others to partake in safe adventurous activities is what the festival is all about.

“I love the way the buzz in the audience quietens as a speaker takes the stage,” says Sedon. “Then he or she takes us on their journey, whether it’s climbing a far-away mountain, or something here in our backyard. We gasp and laugh, sharing the hardships and joys of someone else’s adventure, gazing at the images on the big screen while enjoying the spoken story. In my mind there’s no doubt our speakers make our event.”

This year’s line-up includes Kiwi mountaineer Alastair McDowell who will speak about his incredible mission to enchain New Zealand’s 24 highest mountains above 3000 metres in a continuous, human-powered, 31-day transalpine journey.

Lake Hāwea’s Tanya Bottomley’s talk will cover her traverse of the 45th Parallel, an extraordinary, self-supported 600km journey following the circle of latitude that is 45 degrees south of the Earth’s equator. As an advocate for women's empowerment, Tanya is showing women everywhere that there is a space where fear and success can co-exist, and that extraordinary strength can come from choosing audacity over timidity.

Paul Pritchard, a cutting-edge rock climber and mountaineer, spent a year in hospital and his doctors thought that he might never walk or speak again following a life-changing accident whilst climbing a slender sea stack known as The Totem Pole, in Tasmania. Yet for Paul, a catastrophic brain injury has become a precious gift. Paul will share how the lessons learned in the mountains got him through a harrowing injury and the painfully slow recovery process has engendered a life lived in the moment.

Speakers for the book festival include Shaun Barnett who co-wrote the Montana Award-winning Classic Tramping in New Zealand (with Rob Brown) and whose book Tramping, A New Zealand History (with Chris Maclean) was long listed for the 2016 Ockham Book Awards. Barnett is joined by Chris Long, the son of the bestselling authors of A Life on Gorge River and A Wife on Gorge River, who will speak about his book Boy from Gorge River; journalist Hazel Phillips; and photographer Peter Laurensen , as well as Sedon who will speak about his recently published book What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

More info on our speakers here

The NZ Mountain Film & Book Festival will run in Wānaka from 24 to 29 June, in Queenstown June 30 to July 2, and online in NZ and Australia from June 24 to July 24.

The 2022 event will include talks, films, art displays, live music and readings and the top entries from the Mountain Film and Mountain Book competitions. The festival is a competitive event and an opportunity for filmmakers and authors to showcase their work, receive merit and win cash prizes. In 2022 entries in the book competition have been higher than ever and 150 film competition entries were received from all corners of the globe as well as right here in Aotearoa.