Banff Mountain Film Festival 2006
Saturday Evening Presentation — November 4

Nando Parrado

8 p.m., Eric Harvie Theatre (simulcast in the Margaret Greenham Theatre)
Tickets $32 (included in Film Festival Weekend Pass)
Sponsored by Mountain Equipment Co-op

Photos courtesy of Nando Parrado

 

Stranded 12,000 feet up on a snow-packed ridge in the Andes in 1972, Nando Parrado was among 28 survivors of a violent plane crash that would soon draw the world’s spotlight. In the 72-day ordeal that followed the crash, the slowly dwindling group of survivors suffered through unimaginable cold, starvation, and panic before 23-year-old rugby player Parrado and teammate Roberto Canessa made a desperate nine-day trek west to Chile to get help. Their heroism helped to save the remaining 14 survivors, and their story became a worldwide sensation with the publication of Piers Paul Read’s best-selling chronicle Alive. The Hollywood film of the same name premiered 20 years later.

A Uruguayan television personality, amateur race-car driver, and successful businessman, Nando Parrado is now in his mid-fifties. His ongoing achievements are a strong reflection of the philosophy he developed as a survivor. This year, he has told his own story in the superbly readable memoir Miracle in the Andes, and he brings that story of courage and survival to the 2006 Banff Mountain Festivals.

“Sometimes I ask myself why people need to experience extreme situations to understand the real values of life. These values are so clear and so near us, yet we rush by them looking for the ‘important’ things.”