CERVINO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
6th edition
Breuil-Cervinia/Valtournenche, July 23rd-27th, 2003

The Cervino International Film Festival, the highest Festival in the world, was born in 1998 in order to spread, highlight and foster the cinematography focused on mountain, adventure, exploration and environment. It is organised by the Region of Aosta Valley, by the Municipality of Valtournenche and by the Cultural Association Promocinema, in co-operation with the Italian Alpine Club, and it takes place in Breuil-Cervinia and Valtournenche every year at the end of July.

Its particular structure, which makes it a Festival of the Festivals, involves the participation of the prize-winning movies at the nine world-wide-known Mountain Festivals (Canada, United States, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland, France, United Kingdom and Spain). Therefore, it can guarantee both an international scenario as well as an elevated quality level.

Moreover, the Festival is a founding member of the IAMF, the International Alliance for Mountain Film, which gathers thirteen Festivals all over the world and the National Museum of the Mountain of Turin.

An international Jury judges the movies in competition. In the last years it was composed by brilliant personalities such as Alberto Barbera, former director of Venice Cinema Exhibition; Mario Brenta, director of "Barnabo delle Montagne" belonging to the Ermanno Olmi's school; Franco Prono, teacher of History of Cinema at the DAMS (Arts, Music and Show Department) in Turin and Chairman of the Association of the Museum of the Cinema; Michael Dillon, Australian director and author of every movie on Sir Edmund Hillary; Aldo Audisio, manager of the National Museum of the Mountain in Turin; Fulvio Mariani, mountaineer and Swiss director, director of photography for "Schrei aus Stein" by Werner Herzog; Kurt Diemberger, novelist, photographer and Austrian film maker, who is the only living mountaineer having two very first ascents of peaks over 8000 meters at his credit; Ezio Torta, author of TV programs such as "Geo&Geo" and "Il pianeta delle meraviglie"; Stefano Francia, one of the authors of "Fuori Orario", and many other important personalities belonging to cinema and mountain.

Since 2000 the Festival started to strengthen the special events section, intensifying the co-operation with institutions and important corporations in order to provide a very high quality level of its proposals. Among these institutions the National Museum of the Mountain and the National Museum of the Cinema play a fundamental role. The latter co-operates with the Festival, which allocates funds in order to restore ancient and important motion pictures, obtaining then the right to screen them in world-preview.

The project started in 2000 with "Maciste Alpino" dated 1916. Cervinia was proud to share important restored movies together with London, Paris and Venice. In 2001 the Festival screened the first and the second part of "Tra i Figlidel Cielo", a documentary by Venanzio Sella del 1925, and it contributed to the restoration works for the documentary by Guido Piacenza on Congo of 1910, previewing it during the Festival. The Sella and Piacenza families were present and they introduced the movies. In 2002 it financed the restoration of the third and fourth part of "Tra i Figli del Cielo", screening the restored version in preview.

The 5th edition of the Cervino International Film Festival represented, as confirmed by many important present guests, a step forward, concerning the quantity and the quality of the cultural proposals. The Oscar of the cinema of the Mountain, as journalists describe it, improved the film-feature section with some national premieres. The winning movie in this category was the Iranian "Avazhayé Sarzaminé Madariyam" by Bahman Ghobadi, which met with outstanding success in Cannes.

As a kind concession of the National Museum of the Mountain in Turin ­which co-operates with the Festival since its first edition- the Festival proposed, among the special events, the motion picture "Max et sa belle-mère"a short slapstick-type silent film by Max Linder dated 1911. Then it hosted the second AGIM meeting (Italian Association of Mountain Journalists ­ National Federation of Italian press) and the presentation of the meeting proceedings. "A unique journalism? Latest news from the mountains". The Festival is a yearly appointment for the AGIM journalists. Besides it screened "Snowfood" a series of thirty episodes on mountains and sports.

Calling to mind the "roped-party solidarity day", organised in 2001, the Festival contributed last year in recovering people who face bad living conditions. In association with Alpiteam, a Lombard Mountaineering School, and with the Community Arca of Como the Festival organised a round-table conference on experiences based on drug addiction, mental and juvenile troubles, and mountaineering activities which are a part of the
rehabilitation processes. The Festival, which loves the concreteness, has
therefore hosted a group of young people belonging to the community.

Besides, the Festival organises exhibitions and book presentations.

The Cervino International Film Festival represents a reference mark both for insiders as well as for mountain and cinema lovers. It is an appointment not to be given up for personalities such as Riccardo Cassin, Tomaz Humar, Kurt Diemberger, Catherine Destivelle, Walter Bonatti, Kristzof Wielicki, Lynn Hill, Sergio Martini, Stefano Della Casa and the directors of severalFestivals.

For the 2003 edition, that will take place from the 23rd to the 27th July, the Festival underlines its wish to highlight the quality of its cinema proposals, not only for the movies in competition, but also for the special events, such as the screening of rare restored movies. The feature film section includes four movies ­ almost everyone in preview - among which there is "Shackleton", a four- hour fiction starring Kenneth Branagh as Sir Ernest Shackleton. On the other hand, the Special event section, in association with the Museomontagna of Turin, proposes Alberto Maria de Agostini's "Terre Magellaniche"- with live music accompaniment - and the usual jewel that the festival always gives to its guests and audience. This year it is the turn of an American short ³played² by animated puppets which dates back to the beginning of the Twenties, in absolute preview. Moreover, the National Museum of Cinema keeps on co-operating, supplying two unpublished shorts, shot on our mountains in the early years of the last century.

Even this year the social issues hold an important role for the Festival. It will host again the guests of the Community Arca of Como, screening two movies shot during their experience in 2002. As national preview there will also be a documentary, filmed in a Bolivian village whose inhabitants, who used to live under awful exploiting conditions, got buried by a landslide on 30th March 2003, soon after the end of the documentary¹s shooting. Everything we can see in this movie no longer exists.

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