Programme - (21 October 2023 - Day)

Jimmy, Tobias and Björn have decided to climb Sweden’s twelve highest peaks during a winter ascent. They want to carry out this expedition on their own and in its entirety. They are not professionals and it takes special training to perform this adventure.

Even at the age of 80, Reinhold Messner is not retiring. The film team visits him at his birthplace in South Tyrol and he opens the doors to his castle. There, he provides unusual insights into his life and talks about what moves him today: What does aging mean to him? What does he still want to achieve? What projects does he pursue with his wife Diane and his daughter Magdalena? And what is his legacy? Portrait of a restless adventurer touching on mountaineering, climate change and his life.

Náttúrubönd is a poetic exploration of our changing relationship with primordial nature, explored through the connection of four people with the Icelandic landscape. Rocks, stones and boulders, ice, snow and water, moss, clouds, weather, wind – the film delves deep into the brittle and at the same time fragile beauty of the barren landscape for which humans bear responsibility.

Through the Rhodope Mountains, a remote range south of the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, runs the Balkans’ highest passenger railway line, which carries the last Bulgarian narrow-gauge train. At an altitude of 6,562 ft (2,000 m), it winds its way through vast natural landscapes and Pirin National Park. It is only thanks to the dedication of some local residents that it still runs daily. This documentary accompanies the lives of various people in the region along the tracks who have always been closely connected by the old train.

Camera in hand, Julen approaches Jose, one of the last shepherds in the mountains of the Basque Country. He has known him since childhood and Jose has grown old. It is the first time that he can no longer drive his sheep up Mount Gorbea. In the time they spend together, doors to the past open to make visible what has been left behind. And where will the future lead? This poetic and touching film tells of the passing of time and the disappearance of old ways of life.

On almost every single rock tower in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains that are approved for climbing sits a metal box containing the summit book. There, the climbers are invited to truthfully record their ascents. “Only mountaineering-related entries,” states the respective instruction. The film reveals entries from the 1980s containing critical remarks and open demands for political freedom in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Who would have imagined that employees of the Stasi secret police might also be among their readers? Contemporary witnesses, including Bernd Arnold, remember those years.

Ivvavik National Park is located high above the Arctic Circle in the far North West of Yukon, completely removed from modern civilization. Its 6,060 square miles are covered by snow and ice for more than half of the year. Nowhere else in the world are the effects of climate change as visible and tangible. That is why climate researcher Dustin Whalen and geologists Alice Wilson and Celtie Ferguson have spent many years investigating the melting of the permafrost that is so vital for life in the Far North.

Tony Drees considers himself “lucky” even though he was born into an abusive household, survived a bombing, beat cancer, and had his leg amputated. After all this, and because of his passion for skiing, Tony sets himself an ambitious goal. “When you find freedom, you refuse to suffer,” is his deep conviction. The appeal of his personality matches his commitment to achieving the impossible.

For over four decades, Abdul Karim, commonly known as “Little Karim”, was the Karakoram’s most famous high-altitude porter – and he became a Pakistani mountaineering legend. Born in a remote village, he accompanied the most important expedition mountaineers of his time, such as Chris Bonington, Reinhold Messner and Jerzy Kukuczka. In 1985 he scaled the summit of Gasherbrum 2 in his own right (26,358 ft / 8,034 m). More important to Karim than all expeditions and summits, however, was the hope to improve the lives of his homeland people through his work and reputation. His final initiative before his death in 2022 was to create a group of female mountaineers – in a country where women rarely get to decide their fate.

A nature film narrated as a fairy tale from the point of view of a raven. Nature in the Czech Republic is unspoilt and reminiscent of fairy tales. Amidst idyllic landscape, bears take care of their offspring, black storks hatch their eggs and live in harmony with nature alongside dormice, hawk owls, foxes and wolves. Dotted about, ancient castles tell of an eventful past.

In 2006, the director received the Award for Best Film in the Landscape Category for Gesäuse – Wildes Wasser – Blanker Fels (Gushing – Wild Water – Bare Rock).

Kodiak Island is a natural paradise. It is home to the largest brown bears on earth, the Kodiak bears, which can grow over 5 foot tall. Alaska’s giant bears are adapting to climate-induced environmental changes. Over a period of two years, the documentary accompanies the lives of several bear families and shows how grizzlies on mainland Alaska and Kodiak bears on Kodiak Island attune to these challenges during the summer’s salmon migration.

The legend of the wild white chamois Zlatorog originates in Slovenia’s Triglav Massif. He bears golden horns and is the keeper of a hidden treasure high up in the steep mountains, difficult for humans to access. And yet, every now and then, someone sets out to look for Zlatorog. With the legend of Goldenhorn, this hand-drawn animated film investigates human desires, greed, love and suffering as well as the original and archaic relationship of mountain dwellers to nature.

A journey into the wild and inaccessible heart of Abruzzo, in search of a unique relationship between human communities and the natural world. The protagonists advocate for the protection of Abruzzo’s natural heritage. What unites them is their deep attachment to the natural region in which they have lived and worked for generations. They sense and respect the existence of a deep connection between wind, breath and soul.

Thirteen-year-old Fagnu can’t imagine a world without his grandfather and isn’t willing to let him go. When his grandfather falls ill and ends up on his deathbed, Fagnu despairs. Despite his grandmother’s warnings, he embarks on an arduous search for pataal tea, a mystical healing water from his grandfather’s stories, which supposedly quenches all thirst. According to sagas and legends, it originates from the pataal (underworld) and is strictly guarded by the spirits of the Himalayas.

Big mountains, big glaciers, constant ups and downs, and great skiing! That roughly sums up the Tour du Ciel. Depending on the chosen route, the ski traverse of the Valais mountains takes four to seven days from Zermatt to St. Niklaus – across jagged glaciers and past some of the largest and most impressive Alpine mountains, including Mounts Matterhorn, Dent Blanche and Weißhorn. The Tour du Ciel may not be as well-known as the Haute Route, but it may even be more varied and a tad wilder.

In April 2018, seven people died on the famous Haute Route in the Valais Alps – frozen to death from exhaustion in snow and ice, just 1,800 ft (550 m) from a refuge hut. What happened? After two years of research, this film answers many open questions for the first time: through documentary testimonies from survivors as well as with the help of events reconstructed in fictionalised scenes.

For Sherpas – Die wahren Helden am Everest (Sherpas – The True Heroes on Everest), the director received the 2009 Audience Award.

The participants of the Polish expedition to Nanda Devi East in 1939 were excellent mountaineers. Nevertheless, four died under unexplained or tragic circumstances. Did they fall victim to “Goddess Nanda’s Curse”? The film uses archival footage of expeditions from 1939 and 2019. One of the 2019 participants, the grandson of Jakub Bujak, dreamt of repeating his grandfather’s 1939 expedition.

Dariusz Zaluski’s film Everest – To Shift the Horizon received the Prize for the Best Camera Work in 2007.

In 1939, Janusz Klarner reached the eastern summit of Mount Nanda Devi in the Himalayas – all that happens next seems a consequence of this act. The mountaineering hero recounts an avalanche of events like a terrible dream. A broken taboo cannot be forgotten in a country rebirthing within the new communist order.

Franciszek Berbeka received the Award for the Exceptional Film at the 2022 Tegernsee Mountain Film Festival.

The film is screened outside the competition.

Chérif stands silently on a train station platform, as if he wants to make himself invisible – migrants without papers prefer to remain inconspicuous. But in Chamonix, at the foot of Mont Blanc, a dark-skinned mountaineer stands out. He was chosen by the association “82-4000 Solidaires” to bring mountaineering closer to the socially marginalised. And up there, with crampons on his feet and a rope in hand, he himself is a different person. On the way to the summit, he hopes to forge a path of hope and equality for all.

Twelve-year-old Bhyal works as a blacksmith, sharpening sickles and repairing the villagers’ tools. As a member of the lowest caste, he is an untouchable and meets with hostility from his classmates. Only his friend Laba is willing to defy social boundaries. Set against the backdrop of a Nepalese mountain village, the film tells of social inequality and friendship.

The film was included in the 2022 Berlinale.

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.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Belgian adventurer Louis-Philippe Loncke had to cancel all expedition plans. But the renunciation made him discover a new challenge: the Montagne de Bueren Staircase, a tourist attraction in Liège. Over a length of 853 ft (260 m), with 374 steps and an elevation difference of 220 ft (67 m), it connects the old town with more elevated residential areas. The “crazy” Belgian climbed and descended the stairs 135 times over the course of three days, eventually scaling the total height of Mount Everest.