Programme - Thursday 19. October 2023 - during the day

French mountain guide Romain de Lambert spent much of his childhood in a tiny village in Castagniccia, a remote area of Corsica. He shows the Bergauf-Bergab TV team the diverse possibilities in the local mountains: from sport and multi-pitch climbing in the Bavella to hiking through the lonesome Castagniccia and exploring one of the crystal-clear mountain streams. In his native village of Petriacciu, he proves that he has not yet forgotten the Corsican songs his grandmother once taught him.

Brothers Paul and Felix set off on a hike to their favourite mountain. During the ascent, 24-year-old Paul becomes progressively weaker, and a sudden weather change pushes him to the outer limit of his capacity. In search of shelter, Felix realises that the future, much like the mountain, will be a challenge for them. Paul was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis six months ago. The tour is a confrontation with his body, which no longer seems to belong to him, but also a means of making peace with life.

After a long period of absence, Nina returns to her small mountain village above Lake Como, where carnival is celebrated in the traditional way. In search of her place in life, she learns to understand herself better in conversations with an old acquaintance. The film gently opens a window onto the people and customs of Schignano and at the same time invites us to explore our own identity.

On 10 August 2021, Peter Moser embarks on a bold tour de force: He means to traverse the six main peaks of the Dolomites’ Pala Group in a single day. In this, he follows the routes of the pioneers and first-time climbers and relies exclusively on his own experience as a mountain guide. The film shows his confrontation with the mountain at eye level – with speed, but without haste. With this tour he wishes to penetrate to the roots of alpinism and of his own mountaineering existence.

How do you put down roots where not even trees grow? The Orestes Hut is located at an altitude of 8,530 ft (2,600 m) at the foot of the Monte Rosa Massif in the upper Lys Valley and is truly unique. Set apart from the ski slopes, it is run by the Squinobals. The food is vegan, the energy is green. The documentary follows mountaineers Arturo and Oreste, the uncle to whom the hut is dedicated, his wife Franca as well as Emil and Marta, the hut keepers. In midst of a climate crisis, they teach us to rethink our relationship to the mountain.

Mario Fantin was an avid Italian filmmaker, photographer and mountaineer. With his camera, he accompanied countless international expeditions, starting with the first Italian ascent of K2 in 1954. At some point, he retired to trace the history of remote expeditions and to build the world’s largest archive for mountaineers. In 1980, he made an extreme decision. From then on, he was forgotten – a sad fate for a man who had dedicated his life to memory. His story has never been told.

British mountain veterans Mick Fowler and Victor Saunders unite once again for a first ascent in the Himalayas. They have overcome cancer as well as a feud that lasted thirty years and have by now figured out what it really takes to achieve their goals. The film connects their adventure of ascending the six-thousander Chombu with the story of their mountain friendship, which reaches back five decades.

It is the story of two men who set out in May 1953 to be the first people to scale the highest peak in the world: Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. In a kind of “docu-remake”, the director combines footage from the original 1953 expedition film with later descriptions of Edmund’s and Tenzing’s adventure. He tells of previously unknown details and thus provides unexpected and surprising insights.

The film received the Audience Award at the 2019 Tegernsee Mountain Film Festival.

In 2022, the then 43-year-old David Göttler from Munich reached the summit of Mount Everest – at the third attempt. The film paints a portrait of a professional mountaineer who always undertakes his ascents “by fair means”, i.e. without the use of bottled oxygen – and who has turned back mere meters below an eight-thousander’s peak due to avalanche risk, thereby forsaking the summit from his list of mountaineering achievements.

In 2004, the director received the Prize in the Landscape Category for Die Alpen – Eine Reise durch Bayrisch-Afrika (The Alps – A Journey through Bavarian Africa) and in 2011 an Honourable Mention by the Jury for Das zweite Leben des Tal Niv (The Second Life of Tal Niv).

David Göttler will be present during the screening.

The Schigymnasium Stams (Stams Ski High School) in the Austrian Inn Valley is Europe’s élite winter sports training ground and one of the world’s most successful ski boarding schools. Those who come here do so not merely for the love of the sport, but to be among the best. They come to live their dreams, well aware that ultimately, only one to two percent of all graduates manage to assert themselves as top-class athletes. The road to the Olympics is long and risky, both physically and mentally. Who possesses the strength, the endurance? A year behind the scenes in a place full of hopes and disappointments.