As of: January 24, 2024, 7:00 a.m
By: Alexandra Korimorth
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Tom Dauer becomes the new director of the mountain film festival.
© THOMAS PLETTENBERG
Tegernsee's mayor Johannes Hagn surprised everyone at the New Year's reception with a change in leadership at the mountain film festival: After 20 years as festival director, Michael Pause is handing over the baton to filmmaker and author Tom Dauer from the Valley.
Tegernsee
– The change should be completed by the 21st International Mountain Film Festival, which takes place from October 16th to 20th.
It comes at the request of Michael Pause, who helped set up and run the festival, founded by Otto Guggenbichler and former mayor Peter Janssen, from the start.
“Developing this event for more than 20 years with an enthusiastic team was both a pleasure and an honor,” said Pause, not without pride.
Thanks to the great commitment of professionals and volunteers, it was possible to set up a festival that is respected worldwide in the mountain film scene.
“After the 20-year anniversary last fall, I decided to step away from the rope team and hand over the 'sharp end of the rope' to Tom Dauer.
“I couldn’t wish for a better successor,” explained the 70-year-old filmmaker, journalist, author and passionate mountain athlete from Weyarn with his usual humor.
Michael Pause becomes patron
Michael Pause (l.) directed the mountain film festival for 20 years.
© THOMAS PLETTENBERG
“The 20th Bergfilmfest was the last edition with Micki Pause as festival director.
From the 21st Film Festival in October, when Tom Dauer takes over the management, we will also have a new patron: Michael Pause," announced Mayor Hagn at the city's New Year's reception.
The future patron, Pause, was again surprised by this: “That was not how the farewell was intended,” he said.
But Hagn stuck with it: After the death of long-time patron Heiner Geißler, they weren't looking for a successor, "but Micki Pause, as a profound connoisseur from the first hour of the festival, was simply very obvious."
Pause and Dauer will prepare the 21st Mountain Film Festival together, and Dauer will open the event as the new director.
Tom Dauer has known the festival from the beginning
Tom Dauer, himself an enthusiastic mountaineer and climber, has known the mountain film festival from the very first event.
At the second festival in 2004, he received a prize for the best landscape film together with Malte Roeper.
Now the 55-year-old Valley native is happy about the new task and the trust that the city of Tegernsee has placed in him: “I have been working with Micki Pause for 25 years and am very much looking forward to taking on this challenging task from him.
Preserving the uniqueness of the Tegernsee Mountain Film Festival and further sharpening its profile is a big challenge – and that’s exactly how I like it.”
Dauer is at home in the mountains of this world as a filmmaker - for example for the Bavarian Radio program Bergauf-Bergab, which Michael Pause hosted for decades - and as an author as well as an alpinist and climber.
The documentary “Streif - One Hell of a Ride”, on which Dauer worked as a screenwriter and co-director, was awarded the Austrian Film Prize ROMY.
His books on the subject of mountains, alpinism and adventure are very well known among mountain enthusiasts.