Signs of Life - Saturday (17 October 2020)

Ariane gets caught in a devastating storm, together with a group of mountaineers. At nightfall, mountain rescue starts a search mission. Only means of contact is the phone connection between policeman Serge and Ariane. He tries desperately to encourage the group and to sustain them with his advice through the icy night. But the storm picks up even more and Serge senses that it’s more and more unlikely the rescue team will reach them in time. The drama of these hours gets right under viewers’ skin.

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.

“Still Alive – Drama at Mt. Kenya” received the Great Prize of the City of Tegernsee in 2017.

On the basis of incorrect claims, the bearded vulture – Europe’s largest bird of prey – has been rendered completely extinct in Switzerland. This short film, however, tells a somewhat different tale: the truth about why “odd birds” are indeed condemned to extinction in Switzerland.

The film received the Otto Guggenbichler Prize for a Junior Film Maker in 2012.

Colin is nine years old. His grandparents are renowned wildlife film makers who live inside Italy’s Gran Paradiso National Park — in a village at 1,650 m of altitude near the Aosta Valley. While visiting, Colin learns stealth, how to read tracks, use crampons and camp in the wild. However, one animal proves particularly hard to capture.

The Lapied-family received already some prices at Tegernsee Festival.

The Great St Bernard Pass is one of the most important passes in the Alps, connecting the Swiss Rhone Valley with the Italian Aosta Valley. Its name derives from Saint Bernard of Mentjoux, who erected a hospice on this pass as early as 1050 A.D. at an altitude of 8,100 ft. Even today, one can encounter monks of the Augustinian Order around here as well as plenty of tourists – and of course the famous Saint Bernard dog.

Dr. Otto Guggenbichler, the Tegernsee Mountain Film Festival’s initiator, created an atmospheric reportage in 1962, narrating the history of this pass. At the time, terrified motorised tourists were relieved to see the pass road replaced by a road tunnel.

Mugu in Western Nepal is one of the country’s least developed regions. Illiteracy among women ranges around 90%. In 2011 Sunakali watches her first game of football, 3 years later she is the soccer star of her village and Mugu’s girls’ football team is set to win the national championship.

It is the year 2012 A.D. The entire Alpine region is covered with state-of-the art ski resorts. But no, not completely. In the heart of Switzerland, hidden among high mountains, Kurt commands over the Haldigrat chair lift: ten years ago, he saved the old lift from demolition. Now, he runs it in his idiosyncratic fashion: headstrong, weather-resistant and talkative. In this ancient mountain world, things urban and archaic collide – it’s a place where everyday life gets left behind.

While making hay at the steep flanks of Mt. Rophaien, 62-year-old Axiger Sepp plunges 300 m (984 ft) down to his death. The father of six was an experienced wild hay maker and well familiar with the risks of retrieving grass from often near-vertical mountain flanks. Nowadays, his youngest daughter Julia keeps the mountain farm going. Just like him, she will need to clamber up to the “Wildi” slopes to obtain enough fodder for her animals.

23-year-old Alex Honnold pushes the high-risk discipline of free solo climbing to a new level. He climbs the steepest Big Walls without a rope or the slimmest chance of surviving a single mistake. Alex is laid-back and fearless (except when it comes to the opposite sex). But the enormous face of the Half Dome in Yosemite, the biggest free solo tour ever undertaken, teaches even Alex fear and respect.

On the morning of 8 July 2006, mountaineer Markus Kronthaler dies from exhaustion and dehydration just below the summit of Broad Peak (26,414 ft). His roped party is forced to leave his body behind – those who die in the death zone stay on the mountain. One year later, his brother Georg sets out together with a team of five to recover the body. A so far unprecedented, life-threatening undertaking.
The documentary shows how the team succeeds with a first-time feat in alpine history: the recovery of a mountaineer’s body from an altitude of above 26,000 ft.