“What beautiful films!” The premiere guests left the opening of the 18th International Mountain Film Festival in Tegernsee on Wednesday evening.
Tegernsee - After the compulsory Corona break, the festival allows mountain-enthusiastic audiences to look back to Tegernsee.
Even if, due to the pandemic, many things are not yet as they were known and appreciated in the past, the fascination can still be felt.
The five days of non-stop films are a topic far beyond the valley.
After such a long time of predominantly digital contact, one particularly enjoys meeting mountain friends in real life again, emphasized festival director Michael Pause, before the first film was shown with “Lock Down Rock Up”.
The Briton Nico Hambleton shows how to deal with corona, as the paramedic Jerome Mowat does while bouldering.
How he relieves stress and gains strength in the wall is only one of several contributions that deal with the state of emergency of the past year and a half.
A different kind of state of emergency is "K2 - The Impossible Descent" by Slawomir Batyra.
In Pause's eyes, what the layman imagines a real mountain film to be: rock, ice, very, very thin air and also a portion of drama.
Film chronicle of the feat of strength of an ascent without oxygen
But the film chronicle, opulently staged in the style of the Red Bull Media House, of the special show of strength of an ascent without oxygen and the subsequent descent on skis goes far beyond that. The drone, controlled by the exceptional ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel's brother, plays an essential role not only for filming. It enables safe route planning, if possible, but also guides a mountain climber from a danger zone back on the right path and brings important medication to the summiteers. Of course, it also provides spectacular shots of the incredible downhill run by the young Pole, who found his personal space on skis as a child in an always lively environment with ten siblings.
"Drone or not", he would not have wanted to be in Bargiel's place, says Michael Veith.
The vice world champion in downhill skiing, who jumped in as a guest of honor for Viktoria Rebensburg (cold), pointed out the fine line between necessary respect and fear.
Closing ceremony on Saturday evening only in the company of film teams, jury, supporters and organizers
A wonderful French documentary film about Antoine de Menestrel's change from free climber to freed climber and the comedy “At the summit” rounded off the film evening. If you weren't to suffer with the organizers, who miss three quarters of their ticket income with the limited number of seats, and with those interested in mountain films, who in many cases have no way of getting tickets, you would have enjoyed the fact that the opening in the baroque hall wasn't crowded to experience. Since the closing ceremony on Saturday evening can only take place in the company of film teams, jury, supporters and organizers, there will be a live stream from 7 p.m. with the award ceremony and sequences of the winning films (www.bergfilm-tegernsee.de). Remaining tickets for films are also available online at www.muenchenticket.de and www.tegernsee.com.
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Heidi Siefert