The year 2008 sees the 30th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest by the Austrians. On 3rd May 1978, Wolfgang Nairz, Robert Schauer and Horst Bergmann, together with Ang Phu, stood on the summit of the highest mountain on Earth. On 8th May, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler reached the summit without the help of supplemental oxygen. The Wild Seventies is a film on this pioneering era during which a small mountaineering elite, for about ten years, learned together, went on expeditions, researched the medical foundations of high-altitude mountaineering and put Alpine sponsorship on the agenda. Their common undertakings culminated in the first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen. During those years these men laid the foundations for modern mountaineering. In the film they look back at those days and talk about how they have fared the three decades since.
Director
WOLFGANG REBERNIK
Wolfgang Rebernik
Born in Graz in 1968, Wolfgang Rebernik studied at Zelig film school in Bolzano, Italy. He works as a cameraman, editor and director, living in Innsbruck, Vienna and New Delhi. As a cameraman and editor he worked in various television and documentary films, such as Die Lehren von Feuer und Eis (2007), Julia/Wozu Familie (2006), Antarctica (2005), Base Jump Mamet Cave (2004). He directed Tara (2006) and An die Mai Sonne eines September Lebens/Henrik Ibsen in Gossensass (Documentary, 1997).