Kendal Winners

The Grand Prize at the weekend's Kendal Mountain Film Festival was won by Basque film maker and climber Alberto Inurrategi for 'Your Himalaya'.

The film is a poignant tribute to Alberto's brother Felix who died climbing with him on Gasherbrun 2 as the pair attempted to summit all the fourteen 8,000-metre peaks together. The mountain was their 12th 8,000-er and Alberto completed the set in 2002.

Other winners included another sadness-tinged mountaineering epic, 'Sur les Filde 4000' which follows Patrick Berhault and long time friend Phillipe Magnin in their quest to climb all the alpine 4000s over three months, an adventure that ended tragically when Patrick died in a cornice collapse on the Dom.

The climbing category was won by Psicobloc, a film about Tim Emmett and others climbing in Mallorca, while there was a familiar winner in the 'People's Choice' category with Alastair Lee and David Halsted's 'Twice Upon A Time In Bolivia' scooping the gong.

Here's the description from the festival web site: '"Three no-hopers from Lancashire's grimmest corner (Burnley) head out for Bolivia's Cordillera Real in search of 6000m glory. This hysterical journey begins with acclimatization problems, when one member turns into a "scouse wookey". A stunning mountain route on Pequeno Alpamayo becomes a side line to the deadpan humour which takes in bandits, frostbite, donkeys, climbing and full frontal adventure." Nice one Al.

You can see the full list of award winners on the Mountain Film Festival web site www.mountainfilm.co.uk. Full report on the weekend coming soon.