News

We are delighted to announce that this year we are partnering with the BMC to host the Women In Adventure Film Competition 2023. 

Taking place at our Festival this November, the BMC will be putting on a special interactive screening of the winning films from the Women In Adventure Film Competition. The winners will be announced during this session and you will have a chance to hear from them about their incredible adventures.

The event will be presented by Emily Lyons, the Production Coordinator at Kendal Mountain Festival. Emily says: “The Kendal Mountain team have always championed women both in front of and behind the camera, so this partnership with the BMC and the Women In Adventure Competition feels like a very natural progression and means a huge amount to myself and the whole team at Kendal. The competition has always attracted a cross section of women and sports, showing us that there is more than one way to ‘be’ in the world of adventure. We can’t wait to watch the films, to see more people from historically and systematically excluded groups on our screens, and to announce the winners at a special event in November.”

Interested?

If you have a story to tell or a cause to share, it's the time to do so! We want to see your adventures captured on film to help keep the cycle of inspiration rolling as the BMC head into the ninth year of the competition.

The BMC are after films that are up to 12 minutes long about the adventures of outdoor-loving women. You don't have to be a pro filmmaker or an elite athlete to enter. They want to see films featuring females of all shapes, sizes, ages and abilities.

Try something different! Make your film stand out by putting your own spin on the competition. Your film doesn't have to be a documentary and could be completely fictional. Get creative and make the competition what you want it to be.

Watch Dobson's Hole, a film by Tim Dobson and Judith Plowman which won the Judges Special Mention award in the 2021 BMC TV Women in Adventure film competition. When mother and son caving team got locked down together, they started to look for nearby unexplored objectives..

Why you should enter

The aim of this competition is to increase the number of women shown in the outdoors on the big screen. The Make a Difference and Climate Action Award categories have been introduced to encourage more films to shine the light on the amazing work that is being done by members of the outdoor community for important causes such as in the combat against the climate crisis and amplifying diversity in the outdoors.

2020 winning Director, Rachel Sarah, offers up her advice for anyone thinking of entering this year: "Make something, and submit it. Enjoy it and have fun with it or, equally as important, explore something you are uncomfortable with, and let bad experiences be shared. It's cathartic to create and share, either way. Collaborate if you can; you'd be surprised by how many other people are out there wanting to make things, too. And, quite often, two or three creative brains and cameras are better than one. Community is everything!"

Watch Rachel’s film, Uncomfortable, the Winner of the Best Film award for the 2020 BMC TV Women In Adventure film competition:

The Prizes

Best Film Award: £600 + Kendal Mountain Festival and Sheffield Adventure Film Festival screenings + free entry into the Banff Mountain Film Competition.

Most Watched: £300

Best Professional Film: £300

Make a Difference Award: £300

Climate Action Award: £300

All film entries will be shown on BMC TV (TeamBMC YouTube Channel). The Most Watched category will be decided by the number of views each film receives on the TeamBMC Youtube Channel. The film with the highest number of views will receive the award. The Best Professional Film is for those films that have been commercially backed and/or produced by a film company. You can see the submission form for the full criteria for this category.

Watch A Good Place To Be, the Winner of the Best Film award for the 2022 BMC TV Women in Adventure film competition:

Director Reuben Worlledge and outdoor swimmer Pauline Latchem give us some insight behind the short film and what it meant to win:

Reuben: "Winning the BMC Women in Adventure Award was an incredible experience, the organisers were very welcoming and it was lovely meeting all the other talented filmmakers. As a first time filmmaker it was a huge surprise to find out I’d won the best film award and it gave me a huge boost of confidence to create more work."

Pauline: "It was a brilliant experience - something of a shock to win, but so wonderful to see Reubens' film on a big cinema screen. The organisers made us feel so welcome, it was fantastic to have equal access with captioned films and BSL interpreters on hand. Thank you hugely for making this happen."

How do I enter?

To find out more information on how to enter The Women In Adventure Competition, head to the BMC's website for more details.

Tickets for the BMC Women In Adventure session will be available via the Kendal Mountain Festival website from the 6th of July.