Spring is in the air -- time to celebrate the great outdoors by, well, sitting in a movie theater.

		Banff Mountain Film Festival Where: Byham Theater, Downtown. When: 7 p.m. today and Friday. Tickets: $10 one night, $15 both nights (Venture Outdoors members $8 and $12); 412-255-0564.

But it's not just any theater; it's the Byham. And it's not just any movie. The Banff Mountain Film Festival is a collection of mostly documentary films depicting aspects of outdoor adventure. Founded in 1976, the festival was originally seen as a way to consolidate and exhibit independent films about nature and the outdoors. Since then, it's grown into a nationwide short-subject film festival tour that organizers say attracts some 10,000 nature lovers.

The festival includes about 20 films and videos, many shot on handheld DVD cameras, running in length from a few minutes to about an hour. Different films are shown each night.

When Banff organizers say "outdoor activities," they're talking about heading to the mountains for rock climbing, kayaking, paragliding and skiing, with an awareness of remote human cultures and the environments where these people live.

"A lot of it is about really skilled expert adventurers," says Allison Ruppert, events and membership coordinator for one of Banff's Pittsburgh sponsors, Venture Outdoors, a nonprofit that organizes outdoors events and advocates for a greener region. "Some of the activities [in the films] are like, don't do this at home. Some of it would kill you if you tried it, but some of it would just make you a better, stronger person."

Banff's longest films (less than an hour) have less to do with the rush of adrenaline than with rushing off to observe people who live in dangerous places. "Becoming a Man in Siberia," by French director Benoit Segur, examines the lifestyle of the steppe people, nomadic animal breeders whose boys are taught to understand the teachings of their elders before they can become men.

"The Magic Mountain," a Canadian film by director Baiba Auders Morrow, is either a documentary about the Asian Muslims of the Indian Kashmir, told from the point of view of a Western educator who lives and works with them, or an incomplete biography of 49-year-old American Cynthia Hunt, founder of HEALTH Inc. (Health, Environment, And Literacy in The Himalayas).

Among the most unusual of the Banff films is a six-minute art film by American Danny Brown, who hits the "reverse" button to make rocks and boulders seem to leap from the ground and form themselves into cool-looking stacks.

Most of the Banff Film Festival, however, is about the real-life magic of experiencing the outdoors.

"A lot of outdoor recreation seems intimidating to most people," says Ruppert. "[But] a lot of these films don't have anything to do with that kind of recreation. They're about not only extraordinary people and locations, but a chance for filmmakers to reach out to people who don't get to see that in their daily lives. What we hope is that [through the festival] people will understand different cultures and relationships with the rest of the world and build respect for the outdoors."