The Story of the Cervino Film Festival

The Cervino International Film Festival, the highest Festival in the world, was born in 1998 with the aim of promoting and enhancing the popularity of mountain cinematography, adventure, exploration and environment, and is organised by the region of Valle D'Aosta, by the town council of Valtournenche and by the Promocinema Cultural Association, with the collaboration of the Italian Alpine Club (CAI), and takes place in Breuil-Cervinia and Valtournenche every year at the end of July.
The particular formula, a festival of festivals, will see the almost exclusive participation of prize-winning films from the nine most important mountain film festivals in the world (Canada, USA, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland, France, UK and Spain), which guarantees an international panorama with a very high quality. The category of feature films is excluded from these regulations.

The festival is also a founding member of the IAMF, The International Alliance for Mountain Film, which is organised into 14 festivals around the world and the National Mountain Museum of Turin.

The competing films are judged by an international jury that has seen the presence of prominent personalities like; Alberto Barbera, the ex-director of the Cinema Exhibition of Venice; Mario Brenta, the director of "Barnabo delle Montagne" which belongs to the school of Ermanno Olmi; Franco Prono, professor of Italian Cinema History at the University of Turin and the president of the Associazione Museo del Cinema of Turin; Michael Dillon, the Australian director and writer of all the Sir Edmund Hillary films; Aldo Audisio, the director of the National Mountain Museum; Fulvio Mariani, Swiss mountaineer, director, writer and cinematography director of "Grido di Pietra" by Werner Herzog; Kurt Diemberger, Austrian photographer, director and writer; Ezio Torta, author of the program "Geo&Geo" and "Il pianeta delle meraviglie"; Stefano Francia, one of the authors of "Fuori Orario"; Stefano Della Casa, cinema critic and ex-director of the Turin Film Festival; Leonardo Bizzaro, journalist of the "Repubblica"; Sara Cortellazzo, director of the Under-Eighteen Film Festival and president of Aiace, Turin, and many other important names from both fields of cinema and mountain.

The 2003 Jury was composed only of women, all highly qualified in the fields of cinema or mountaineering: Paola Giliotti, mountaineer and sports physician; Paola Peila, general director of CAI; Paola Olivetti, director of The National Film Archive of Resistance and finally, Vittoria Castegneto and Ingrid Runggaldier, young film directors.

In 2000, the Festival began to develop special events collaborating with institutions and prestigious corporations that can guarantee proposals at a higher cultural level. The National Mountain Museum and the National Museum of Cinema, among others, occupy some of the more important places. The latter, having set up a collaboration whereby the Festival financially contributed to the restoration of films of a particular historical-documentary value in exchange for their preview.


In 2000, the first preview was "Maciste Alpino" made in 1916. Cervinia shared the honour of holding the prestigious restorations along with other cities like London, Paris and Venice.
In 2001, the Festival screened the first and second part of "Tra i Figli del Cielo", a documentary by Venanzio Sella in 1925, and contributed to the restoration of the documentary by Guido Piacenza in Congo in 1910, offering the preview for public viewing. The Sella family and Piacenza were present and introduced the first screening. In 2002, the third and fourth parts of "Tra I Figli del Cielo" were previewed in their restored versions.

The Special Events have seen in 2003, in collaboration with the Mountain Museum of Turin, the screening of "Terre Magellaniche" by Alberto Maria de Agostini, with a live musical accompaniment and the usual 'trimmings' that the festival always reserves for its guests and the public at the evening of the premiere, and that is a short American film with animated puppets from the 1920's, the first ever preview. Furthermore, the continuing collaboration of the National Museum of Cinema saw the screening this time of two short, unedited films from the early twentieth century, filmed on our mountains.

The last edition of the Cervino International Film Festival saw, according to the numerous and prestigious guests present, a firm leap forward regarding both the quantity and quality of the cultural proposal. The Oscar of the mountain cinema, as it is called by journalists, has developed a section dedicated to feature films with four national previews.
Among the competiting feature films from the past years include: "Hanuman" by Fred Fougea; "Genghis Blues" by Roko and Adrian Belic; "Premier de cordée" by Pierre Antoine Hiroz and Edouard Niermans; "Himalaya" by Eric Valli; "I nostri anni" by Daniele Gaglianone; "Il tempo dei cavalli ubriachi" by Bahman Ghobadi; "La coppa" by Khyentse Norbu; "Vollgas" by Sabine Derflinger; " Alexei to Izumi" by Motohashi Seiichi; "Kukushka" by Alexander Rogozhkin; "Le Pays du chien qui chante" by Yann Dedet, and "Shackleton" by Charles Sturridge.

Ideally looking back to the day organised in 2001, called "The roped party of solidarity", including the participation of Don Ciotti, the Festival wanted to contribute to the rehabilitation of drug users and to assist in overcoming the difficult conditions that life presents. In collaboration with Alpiteam, the Lombard School of Mountaineering, and the Arca di Como Drug-Addicted Rehabilitation Centre, organised a panel on the experiences of drug-addiction, mentally disturbances, and the difficulties of youth in comparison with the mountaineering activities they took part in during the rehabilitation. The Festival prides itself in concrete gestures, and welcomes every year a group of people from the rehabilitation centre.

The festival also organises exhibitions and book presentations.

The Cervino International Film Festival, positioned under the splendour of Cervino (Matterhorn), has now become a reference point for experts and for those who are simply passionate about cinema and mountains. Every year you can find important personages like Riccardo Cassin, Tomaz Humar, Kurt Diemberger, Catherine Destivelle, Walter Bonatti, Kristzof Wielicki, Lynn Hill, Sergio Martini, Gianni Rondolino, Stefano Della Casa and the directors of many other festivals.

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