Their faces were red from the biting wind. Their bones were chilled, but they smiled. They smiled, for this was their kind of weather.

For the third time, the Banff Mountain Film Festival came to the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, gathering the local outdoorsy types to the college campus, for a night of short films about extreme sports and social conditions involving the outdoors.

Half-filling the Glitz Auditorium, those in attendance were covered in sport gear, dressed in preparation, in hopeful anticipation that a random Greyhound bus would pull up to the front of Hawkin's hall to take everyone up to a heated Ski Lodge in Lake Placid. These weren't the occasional trip-types, as those in attendance - mainly college kids - had jackets -- light, durable jackets - of dull grays, worn tads, and faded shades of blue that can only come through prolonged exposure to the outside.

The showing in Plattsburgh was a stop on the Festival's International tour, showing a handful of short films taken from the three-day event up in Alberta. The tour acts as an envoy of the Banff Centre, the location of the three-day festival, as well as a traveling sideshow about outdoor experiences that those in attendance might not have known about.

In the opening sequence, images of waterfall-diving kayaks and snowboarders getting the big air, solicited the biggest pop, a reaction the crowd would not repeat again. The sequence was immediately followed by a set of commercials -- the tour's sponsors - that sucker-punched the momentum.

Rebounding, those in attendance chuckled at Peter Mortimer's "Front Range Freaks: Urban Ape," an award-winning profile of a fearless climber who scampered up the sides of buildings with ease. This made those in attendance laugh, warming them up for the next film: "Anomaly," a showcase of a legless, gold-medallist skier. No reaction.

"The Essence of Adolescence," a highlight film of Canadian teens directed by 15-year-old Daniel Kingsbury. While the film displayed an excellent eye for film, especially for a 15-year-old, it failed to do anything to those in attendance, who had all passed the perspective presented in the movie. Only grunts and moans were heard when the kids took a bad dive, posting themselves on a guardrail or falling face first on the pavement.

Intermission came and with it, light-hearted talk and cigarette breaks. Outside, a group of smokers laughed and discussed the films, agreeing that the fourth film, a forgettable National Geographic/BBC collaboration, starring an annoying British man, was nothing special.

The second half went by fast, as those in attendance were bombarded by commercials disguised as films. Commercials for Spanish parasailing, Norwegian para-skiing, and a pair of Canadian mountain climbers drinking Red Bull.

The Festival ended with the MC taking a poll, measuring the level of clapping to see which film the audience liked best. Out of the clips, the crowd cheered loudest for not a short film about outdoor sports, but instead a documentary about Tibetan children crossing over into Nepal. The film highlighted the fact that the children were choosing to live in exile in order to gain a proper education. Amazing? no, because the audience was full of young students, of liberal political alignment. They knew well about the Chinese occupation of Tibet. The plight of the children turned their hearts.

The crowd left the auditorium with positive feelings, talking about an enjoyable experience, chattering about the different details of the films. The commercialism was overlooked, as for the overall opinion, it was a warm reception for the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

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