Magic in the Mountains: Banff World Media Festival turns 45

Executive director Jenn Kuzmyk and former Festival leader Pat Ferns discuss BANFF's 45-year legacy.

The Banff World Media Festival (BANFF) has come a long way since its 1979 beginnings as the Banff Television Festival.

It was “a small, local event with some charm,” describes Pat Ferns (pictured second from left), who was a volunteer board member during the 1980s and 1990s, and eventually worked his way up to CEO in 2004. “I tended to get the people I was working with internationally to come to the Festival, expose them to the Canadian industry, and show Canadians what was possible,” Ferns says of the Festival’s earlier iterations.

BANFF is entering its 45th year with a four-day event, beginning on June 9. Governed by the Banff Television Festival Foundation and produced by Playback parent company Brunico Communications, the Festival and its Rockie Awards include participation from roughly 50 countries each year, and centre on both the international and Canadian screen industries.

Jenn Kuzmyk, BANFF’s current executive director and VP, publisher of Playback, says it has become more accessible in its recent iterations. “We have made efforts since 2018 to continue to create access for emerging people in the industry, but also people who are underserved in the industry.”

Programs such as the Netflix-BANFF Diversity of Voices Initiative, the BANFF Spark Accelerator for Women in the Business of Media and the Indigenous Screen Summit have reduced barriers for Indigenous and racialized producers and creators as well as women and professionals from intersectional backgrounds to attend.

“We have some of the biggest industry-access programs in the world,” says Kuzmyk. “They have brought more than 700 individuals who are Black, Indigenous, and people of colour across the years, and this has become such a core piece of who we are and what we do.”

Opening doors has helped enrich BANFF’s foundation as a powerful pitch platform. Festival delegates advance or conclude deals and sales worth an estimated $1.95 billion each year, according to a Nordicity study from 2019. Ferns recalls how some of his contributions helped build that foundation.

“I created a format, which was called the Market Simulation,” he says. “It was the first public pitching opportunity in the world. And after I did it there, it became a fixture at the Festival. Part of BANFF’s major legacy is that we created a platform where independents were able to pitch projects in public.”

That live-pitch format and legacy continues today within the Indigenous Screen Summit’s annual Pitch Forum, which kicks off the Festival each year. During the 1980s, BANFF went from charming to formidable. “During that period, we doubled fundraising, we doubled attendance, we doubled everything,” says Ferns.

Of the Festival’s current trajectory, Kuzmyk says, “I’d like to see it continue to grow. Partially in size, but mostly in impact.” She describes some of that impact as the Festival’s ties to the Emmy Awards nomination and voting period, which, this year, begins on June 13, one day after the 45th BANFF ends.

The Festival also attracts network, studio and streaming C-suites, showrunners, decision-makers and and creatives from across the global industry. Kuzmyk says it is often referred to as “the Davos of media,” harkening to the power set that descends upon the Swiss town that hosts the annual World Economic Forum.

“I think that this is a Canadian success story,” says Ferns. “It had its challenges over the years, but it became a vital part of the domestic industry, and rose to become a vital part of a world industry. And I think the calibre of the programs and people we’ve attracted over the years have made it an important institution in the world of television.”

This story originally appeared in Playback‘s Spring 2024 issue

Pictured (L-R): Paul Jackson, Pat Ferns, Patrick Dromgoole, Jacques Dercourt, Norman Horowitz and Richard Price at BANFF’s Market Simulation in the 1990s.