Mountains that live, mountains to experience

Published 04/04/2023

Over 130 films at the 71st Trento Film Festival, presenting stories and key players in a possible future for the high lands.

Over 130 films have been selected, of which 27 in the competition. Following the opening, with the international premiere of Sur les chemins noirs by Denis Imbert starring Oscar winner Jean Dujardin as he crosses France on foot, it is the turn of the films in the 9 programme sections, revealing a new vision of the mountains as a place for respectful and cooperative coexistence between man and nature. After several editions dominated by alarmism, it is a year in which the high lands present possible scenarios for coexistence, employment and care. Trento Film Festival thus continues to suggest a possible future for the mountains.

The films standing out in the international competition assigning the Gold and Silver Gentians include: the latest National Geographic production Wild Life, with Kristine and Doug Tompkins’ incredible story of love and dedication to nature by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, Oscar winners for Free Solo; the fascinating Song of Earth, produced by Wim Wenders and Liv Ullmann, the award-winning Norwegian director Margreth Olin’s homage to the majestic Nordic landscape where she was born and raised and to her parents, using images and music; Stams by Bernhard Braunstein, which opens the doors of the most famous sports school in Europe, where the young skiing champion of the future study and train; along with Werner Herzog’s return to the Trento competition with his latest work The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft, about the famous couple of French vulcanologists already featured in the film winning of the audience award in Trento in 2022, and recently nominated for an Oscar, Fire of Love.

In the Premieres section dedicated to fiction feature films, the surprising and visionary La montagne, directed and interpreted by the climber and mountaineer Thomas Salvador, presented at the last Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, filmed entirely in Chamonix and on Mont Blanc, and Let the River Flow by the Norwegian director Ole Giæver, an impassioned celebration of the first battles against discrimination and in defence of the environment by the Sami people in Scandinavia, are particularly eagerly awaited.

Nature films could not be lacking, with screening of the spectacular French documentary for children and adults Le Chêne, about life on and around a majestic oak tree over the seasons, and films on the relationship between communities and animals in the Alps, such as L’ors and Lupo uno.

Archive discoveries return, with the world premiere of the film restored by Bologna Film Library Everest – The Italian expedition to the roof of the world by Guido Guerrasio, about the first Italian ascent of the mountain in 1973, headed by Guido Monzino, and the Family Mountains programme on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of home movies, with amateur mountain and climbing films from the collections of the Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia association in Bologna.

The closing film on Saturday 6 May is Rispet, the premiere for the courageous debut feature film by the Trentino director Cecilia Bozza Wolf, filmed entirely in the Valle di Cembra (Trentino) with non-professional actors.