Programme Saturday 21 October 2017 - evening

With Festival Patron Dr. Heiner Geißler. Cinematic highlights of the Festival and guests.

In 1970 Gert Judmaier suffers a tragic fall during his descent from Mt. Kenya and remains stranded for 7 days with a fractured leg. An incredible transcontinental rescue operation succeeds in retrieving him alive. 45 years later the original team returns to Mt. Kenya. A film by mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner.

Extreme Alpinists David Lama, Hansjörg Auer and Alex Blümel attempt to ascend Annapurna III (7,555 m) on its unclimbed Southeast ridge. Exhaustion, fear and the crazily exposed route threaten to crush them.

Bizarre sandstone towers rise from lush green jungles in China’s first and largest national park. In 2016, Mayan Shmith-Gobat, Ben Rueck, Liu Yongbang and Xiao Ting are the first climbers permitted to try their skills here.)

The Golden Age of bouldering reigns in Great Britain. An unprecedented number of climbing halls sets climbers up for near and far boulder challenges. This documentary grants a humorous look at the history and reality of what used to be an “anarchic sport”.

Winter is over, all projects completed. However, a snow-rich spring inspires two Austrian skiers to abandon their well-hatched plans to hang at home.

The glaciers of the last ice age have shaped a barren landscape. Here, surrounded by the Ortler Alps, humans and nature live in intimate reciprocity, making the national park into a model region for sustainable Alpine living.

“Give me a fish and I will die. Teach me to fish and I can live.” Loyal to this motto, two Swiss mountain rescue workers try to set up an aerial rescue operation in Nepal based on the Swiss model and focussing on the transfer of knowledge.

In 1986 mountain guide Gottlieb Braun-Elwert traversed New Zealand’s southern Alps on skis in just 18 hours, mastering a massive glacier, four mountain passes and 4,000 m of altitude. He never thought of this experience as a struggle, but likes to call it a symphony.

Multiple para-olympic champion Michael Teuber faces the greatest challenge of his life. Almost completely paraplegic, he yet aims to summit on Mt. Chimborazo (6,267 m) in Ecuador.

Freeriders Alex, Max and Rafael are merely testing their tent when a breathtaking roller coaster ride through the mountains begins. Their tiny magical tent brings our heroes to unimaginable places.

The oldest porters servicing remote huts in the High Tatra’s nature reserve sometimes carry over 100 kg on their backs. Defying storms and snow, they do not consider their profession a burden, but a form of freedom.

Distinguished by National Geographic as “Adventurers of the Year”, three daredevils try to haul their transport kayaks across 1,000 km of Greenland ice — with the help of kites. On their way to the island’s northernmost passable river, they treat viewers to truly breathtaking scenery.