One of the toughest jobs at any competitive film festival is being a jury member. Three intense days of rating each of the finalists and making tough decisions about the award winners is not a job many people would line up for. These jury members help to ensure that fine filmmaking is recognized and rewarded.

Since the early '80s, Arlene has been in perpetual motion, exploring the hidden niches of the Himalayas, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, eastern Africa, the Americas, Mongolia and Russia. She has travelled throughout the world by kayak -- including the first descent of the Brahmaputra River in Tibet and over a decade of exploring rivers in Nepal, Russia and Chile.

Arlene is a professional river guide, kayak instructor and expedition leader. She was the first woman river guide in New Zealand and a member of the US women's whitewater team from 1989-92. She organized and led the first Japanese-Russian expedition to the controversial Kuril Islands in 1992.

Her photographs and writing are recognized throughout the outdoor industry, and her long list of film projects includes acting as Meryl Streep's trainer, stunt double and technical advisor in The River Wild, hosting numerous outdoor-adventure television series including "Trailside," "Anyplace Wild" and "Survival of the Fittest." Burns has produced, and acted as talent in, a number of prime-time documentaries featuring kayaking expeditions in locations around the world.

Born in Marseille, where she studied law, Chiocca moved to Autrans and began working for the city government, organizing ski competitions such as the European Junior Championship and the World Military Championship. She helped promote the most popular cross-country skiing competition in France, la Foulée Blanche. In 1984, the mayor asked her to organize a film festival called Festival du Film Neige et Glace d'Autrans. Chiocca has been the director of this festival, now called Festival du Film de Montagne et Aventure d'Autran, for 17 years. Chiocca is preparing a musical festival for September and has been the technical advisor of the Festival du Film de Glisse in Grenoble for the past five years.

Giorgio Daidola is a journalist, an expert skier and a film director whose love of mountain adventure has taken him all over the world. He was born in Torino, Italy, and today lives in Frassilongo, a village in the mountains near Trento, where he is a professor of business finance and sport tourism management at the Faculty of Economics of Trento University.

His articles and photos have appeared in Powder Magazine, Desnivel, Alp, Montagnes, Alpirando, No Limits, Backpacker and many others. He was editor of the magazine Rivista della Montagna from 1980 to 1987 and since 1984 has edited the annual special "Dimensione Sci" issue of the magazine.

Daidola has served as a jury member at the Diablerets, Trento, San Sebastian and Autrans mountain film festivals and was a member of the Trento film festival council from 1988 to 1992.

He has participated in mountain expeditions on seven continents and has telemark skied all over the world, including the first telemark descent of 8013-meter Shishapagma. Daidola directed Il passo in curva with Carlo Rossi, winner of the special FISI (Italian Winter Sport National Federation) prize at the 1993 Trento film festival. He is a professional ski instructor and adventure group leader and has appeared as a skier in many movies including The Time Machine, Sci a talloni liberi, No Man's Land and Sciatori 6 neve una. Daidola is a member of the Polartec Challenge board.

Stephen Venables is a mountaineer and writer, best known for his part in the 1980 Anglo-American-Canadian Everest expedition, which pioneered a new route up the mountain's biggest face. Venables was the first Briton to reach the summit of Everest without supplementary oxygen. During 14 visits to the Himalaya, he has made many first ascents including Kishtwar Shivling, the Solu Tower and Panch Chuli V.

Stephen's first mountain experiences were in the European Alps, where he skied as a child. Later he tackled some of the most famous European climbs such as the North Face of the Eiger. He still thinks of the Alps as home, although he loves to travel to the world's remotest places.

His first book, Painted Mountains, won the 1986 Boardman-Tasker Prize. Everest - Alone at the Summit was runner-up in 1989 and is now in its seventh edition. Himalaya Alpine Style has become a seminal work on modern Himalayan climbing and won the Grand Prize at the 1996 Banff Mountain Book Festival. His most recent book, A Slender Thread, is shortlisted for this year's mountain literature award and the Boardman-Tasker Prize.

Venables' most recent trips were a return to South Georgia with Reinhold Messner and Conrad Anker to take part in the WGNH/Nova/White Mountain Films IMAX movie Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure and a climb of the Matterhorn in tweed suit and nailed boots for a BBC documentary about the first ascent. He lives with his wife and two sons in the English city of Bath, at a safe distance from the mountains.

A native of Alberta, Roger Vernon has combined his love of the mountains and his desire to make images into a flourishing career as an internationally respected cinematographer.

In the 26 years since attending the Banff Centre's two-year Visual Communications program, his expertise has taken him onto mountains and glaciers around the world, most recently into the Karakoram, Pakistan, to photograph K2 for the upcoming feature film Vertical Limit. He joined David Breashears on the 1996 American expedition to Everest to photograph the two documentaries: The Search for Mallory and Irvine and American Firsts - Women on Everest.

Although known for his mountain- and adventure-related subjects, he has worked on a multitude of documentaries ranging from natural history and science to the arts. His photography has appeared in productions for the National Film Board, Discovery, Nova, the BBC and The Learning Channel.

Roger has worked on a number of feature-length dramas for Hollywood, most notably Unforgiven, the 1992 western that was nominated for Best Cinematography and won four Academy Awards including Best Picture. In 1993, he was inducted into the prestigious Canadian Society of Cinematographers. That same year, he was honored to receive the Bill March Summit of Excellence Award for his ongoing contribution to the mountain community.