Press Release      20 October 07

Great Prize goes to Canada
Tegernsee Jury Shows Backbone

Tegernsee – ‘Am Limit’ by the ‘Huber boys’ hit it off with the audience. But the film festival jury cast a critical eye and emerged from heated debates with a brave decision: ‘Asiemut’ by Canadian Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier was awarded the Tegernsee Mountain Film Festival’s Great Prize.

This year, the Mountain Film Festival jury could have made things very easy for itself. But it did not, although Pepe Danquart’s extravagantly and expensively produced cinematic climbing movie ‘Am Limit’ (At the limit) had entered the race as red-hot favourite. Five days of gorgeous autumn weather were lost on jury members Gerhard Baur (Germany), Ines Bozic Skok (Slovenia), Jerzy Surdel (Poland), Alessandro Anderloni (Italy) and Nico Mailänder (Germany), who spent 5 days in darkened rooms, analysing the strengths and weaknesses of 71 competing films from 18 nations. Still, they would have appreciated more time for their decision.

Not only the jury, many viewers also started to doubt the obvious lead of ‘Am Limit’ in the face of so many other qualitative films – climbing films included. On the opening night, ‘Enlightenment’ (by Armin Buchroithner, Christoph Hoerner, and Stefan Ribitsch) thrilled its audience at the packed Barocksaal theatre: The three young film makers presented a technically refined and well-paced exploration of the clash between fanatic bouldering and the demands of a regular professional career. For their impressive work, the three Austrians were rewarded with the Junior Film Maker’s Prize.

Talking about climbing: The German Alpine Club’s prize for the best Alpine Film (category ‘mountain experience’) was awarded for the first time this year, to another excellent project in the mountain film genre, ‘Facing Obsession’. Camera operator and director Jochen Schmoll accompanied Stefan Glowacz and Robert Jasper to Cerro Murallón on the continental ice sheet of Patagonia and delivered to the Tegernsee viewers a first-hand experience of showdown at the mountain. 

Opulent images convinced the jury of Eisenwurzen, a documentary by Austrian Waltraud Paschinger about the landscape history of the Austrian national park of the same name, which received the prize in the category of ‘mountain nature’. The French-born winner in the category ‘mountain life’ demonstrates in his movie how the Kogis, the last remaining mountain tribe of Colombia, preserve their original life style with much pride and optimism.

Obviously, the cinematographic language of films in the special category ‘ski and snowboard’ differs substantially from that of productions dealing with natural and human habitats. ‘This might go to show that the topic “mountain” may be approached from fundamentally different angles and with various techniques. ‘The jury favoured well-crafted films whose style and formal choices reflect the content,’ explains jury member Gerhard Baur. Both criteria were fulfilled by the Garhammer juniors Max, Moritz and Sebi in their ski film ‘Pass it on’. Bold, carefree and wicked are the escapades in the snow as well as the ensuing cinematography by these young free-style film makers who earned the ‘special prize’.

From the start, the jury was hugely impressed by one film – the more so because ‘Asiemut’ was made by two young Canadians who, during their cycling tour through Asia, held their first camera in hands. ‘That was hard to believe when we were facing such a well-crafted, technically refined production full of fine nuances,’ Gerhard Baur comments. ‘Oliver Higgins and Mélanie Carrier have made an exemplary, very poetic film – about people on the go, about powerful landscapes and inner growth.’

These decisions demonstrate that the jury has taken its work very serious. The festival’s artistic director, Michael Pause from Bavarian Public Broadcasting (Bayerischer Rundfunk) confirms this: ‘The choice of winner shows that even with limited expenditure and extravagance, an outstanding film may be produced. In Tegernsee, David once again entered against Goliath and emerged victorious. It has to be added though, that more often than not, it is nuances that decide over the order of winners.’