Banff Mountain Film Festival 2016 unleashes outdoor adventures.

In A Line Across the Sky, the Fitz Roy Range looks like a rocky spine of teethy peaks ready to devour the underprepared climber. The Argentine range and its highest point, Monte Fitz Roy, are considered one of the world’s best tests for top climbers. Its image has been distributed around the world as the logo for the Patagonia Clothing brand.

The 40-minute film finds climbers Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell attempting to be the first to do the “Fritz Traverse,” a four-mile climb ascent of the main peak. The movie is this year’s REEL ROCK entry in the Banff Mountain Film Festival, which screens this Friday at the Golden State Theatre and benefits local nonprofit Return of the Natives.

A climbing superstar, Honnold’s best asset might just be his unflagging optimism about the outcome of undertaking dangerous feats. Meanwhile, Caldwell has a wife and young son – named Fitz after the peak – that help him realize his dangerous climbs could deeply affect others.

When a weather window finally opens, the two begin their ascent. For climbers at the film fest, the parking lot-sized slabs of vertical granite will elicit hoots and applause. Those scared of heights are advised to bring a handkerchief for the nervous perspiration.

The REEL ROCK films that screen at the Banff Film Festival World Tour in Monterey every year are always a crowd favorite with good reason. They feature stunning climbing accomplishments by athletes that are disarmingly relatable.

Writer David Roberts nails the reason the films are so effective. “What’s the recipe,” he wrote. “It’s some amalgamation of humor, fast pacing and clever editing, unrehearsed sound bites from athletes caught close-up during bouts of manic performance, all leavened by the authenticity of real risk and genuine adventure.”

A Line Across the Sky is not the only film focused on climbing. Women’s Speed Ascent finds Mayan Smith-Gobat and Libby Sauter pursuing the women’s speed record for climbing up The Nose on Yosemite’s El Capitan. Elsewhere, the winner of a Special Jury Mention, Operation Moffat examines the life of Britain’s first female mountain guide Gwen Moffat. Moffat, now 91 years old, first started climbing back in 1946 and has summited peaks in England’s Cornwall and Scotland’s Isle of Skye. But the eight-minute Banff film Denali is not about climbers attempting to summit North America’s tallest peak but rather it looks at an outdoor enthusiast’s furry, four-legged friend who is named after the former Mount McKinley.

BANFF MOUNTAIN FILM FESTIVAL 7-10pm (6pm doors) Friday, March 4. Golden State Theatre, 417 Alvarado St., Monterey. $20. 649-1070. www.goldenstatetheatre.com