An inspirational film festival that'll have your heart climbing every mountain and fording every stream is making a triumphant return to Tauranga.

The 2016 Tauranga Mountain Film Festival is back for its third year and will take place across three nights at the Tauranga Art Gallery, starting Thursday, October 13.

Since its debut in 2013, the festival has been steadily growing in popularity, says co-organiser Richard Watson.

'Three years ago we started with just the one night, then last year it grew to two nights, now this year the festival is three nights.

'It's proving really popular in Tauranga with the crowds growing year-on-year, and there's a great mix of young and old – basically anyone who's interested in the outdoors, adventures, and great stories.”

The four films – ‘When the Mountains were Wild', ‘The Trail to Kazbegi', ‘The Rocky Mountains Traverse and ‘Locked In - First Descent of the Beriman Gorge'– have been selected from the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival in Wanaka in July.

Richard says the films weave together amazing action shots with great storytelling. 'It's the story behind the films that make them all so brilliant.”

'For me my favourite, simply for sheer gut feeling, would be ‘Locked In'. What the group did was amazing and took a fair amount of, well, cajones [testicles]. There's one scene where they lose someone underneath the water for a while, it's one of the most poignant moments of the film.”

The Tauranga festival has been sponsored by outdoor clothing and equipment brand Macpac and Richard says they'll be giving away spot prizes during the three-day event. He also would like to thank the Tauranga Art Gallery for once again hosting the festival.

'The Tauranga Art gallery is a very cool place to host the festival, it's a really nice environment and perfect space to screen these movies.”

The 2016 Tauranga Mountain Film Festival is at Tauranga Art Gallery from October 13-15. Tickets cost $19 at: mountainfilmfestival-tauranga.nz

SunLive has one double pass to give away to one lucky reader who can tell us where the 2016 Tauranga Mountain Film Festival is taking place?

Enter online at www.sunlive.co.nz under the competition section. All entries must be received by Wednesday, October 12.