The winners of the New Zealand Mountain Film & Book Festival’s annual book awards have been announced ahead of next month’s festival, which will run from June 20-24 in Wānaka.

Euan Macleod and Craig Potton have been selected as the winners of the premier prize, the 2025 Nankervis/Bamford NZ Mountain Book of the Year award, for their book ‘Look Out’. 

Look Out is an artistic collaboration that celebrates the sublimity of New Zealand’s Southern Alps by the two well-known New Zealand artists and friends; a painter and photographer respectively.

“We have both gotten more than we will ever know from the Southern Alps and even at our advanced ages we find ourselves at Aoraki, in the throne room of the mountain gods, with the same awe, amazement and joy of the sublime that we have felt from our first trips there so long ago,” Craig said. 

“It was our hope that our art might convey something of that connection to the mountain wilderness and [the festival’s] nod to our book has vindicated that hope.”

The Mountain Book Competition covers literature on the world’s remote places, and tales about people and their adventures. 

Submissions were invited for two categories: Mountain and Adventure Narrative for stories and accounts about specific adventures (non-fiction); and Mountain and Adventure Heritage for guidebooks, coffee table or picture books, history books, analyses, reflections on culture, environments or ethics and advocacy.

The Heritage Award went to ‘Kahurangi’ by Dave Hansford - a book that celebrates the biodiversity of Kahurangi National Park, Northwest Nelson and Golden Bay.

Judge Marjorie Cook said Dave was “simply a wonderful natural history writer”.

“His first sentence, his first scene - detailing a paleolithic orgy of creatures forever fossilised in the act of getting it on - is startling and memorable… This book is big, meaty, dense and packed with knowledge and great images and photos.”

Meanwhile, the Narrative Award went to Andrew Fagan for his book ‘Swirly World: Lost at Sea’, which Marjorie said was “a love story to a boat not much bigger than a bathtub, in which Fagan attempts to circumnavigate the globe”.

“[It] weaves together past and present sailing adventure stories while having another go at ‘living the dream’, this time on a potent ocean of doubts”. 

Both Dave and Andrew will be guest speakers at next month’s festival, which will feature a wide range of events celebrating adventurous sports and lifestyles.

Read the full 2025 New Zealand Mountain Film & Book Festival programme here.

PHOTO: NZMFF