7th Tegernsee International Mountain Film Festival

Awards & Jury Statements

Jury:
Lisa Eder | Maciej Wojak | Marion Poitevin | Augusto Golin | Philipp Clarin

Winning Films

Great Prize:  "Obcina"  -  RO

Mountain Experience, German Alpine Club: "Dringo I'r Eitha' (Climbing to the Limits)"  -  UK
 
Mountain Nature:  "Leise rieselt der Schnee" (Slowly the Snow Falls)  -  AT
 
Mountain Life: " Churubamba - Frauen am Ball" (Women Having a Ball)  -   DE/FR
 
Extra: Mountain Animals: "Yak!"   -  DE
 
Junior Film Maker: "El ultimo Hielero del Chimborazo"  (The Last Ice-Bringer of Chimborazo)  -  FR
 
Best Camera: Manuele Cecconello for "Olga e il tempo" (Olga and Time)  -  IT
 
Best Landscape: "Baffin L'île aux enfants" (The Children’s Island)  -  FR
 
Jury Award  Exceptional Film: "Olga e il tempo" (Olga and Time)  -  IT

Great Prize by the City of Tegernsee

Obcina
Director: Björn Reinhardt

There are films that touch, entertain and get you thinking, all at the same time. Obcina is one of them.
The small Rumanian village of Obcina sits forlorn amidst the Carpathian Mountains. ‘God has twisted people’s reason,’ one of its inhabitants complains. For in winter, they hastily abandon their homes. Too great is their fear of the sacrifices they will have to make in the months to come. Only Stefan Cut’s family stays on.

With great sensitivity and humour, the film documents the touching story of Stefan and his family and their great misfortune: his father lost the fingers of one hand to the severe chill. And yet, all depend on his labour. Will the last dwellers leave the village this winter?

Director Björn Reinhardt traces this question as well as the life of the villagers with directness and empathy. This the jury found inspirational. An entirely successful documentary also caters unusual imagery. It builds its dramatic arc from summer to winter. Black and white shots convey an element of otherworldliness. Obcina grants unbiased insight into the views, wishes and hopes of these mountain villagers.
A befitting musical score and a convincing dramatic composition help to make the film into a ‘muted experience’. Obcina is a quiet film – and that makes it so special.

Therefore, the Great Prize is awarded to Björn Reinhardt for Obcina – for this unique observation of life in the Carpathian Mountains.

Prize in the Category ‘Mountain Experience’

Dringo I'r Eitha'
Climbing to the Limits
Director: Alun Hughes

Ioan is just 16 and he is obsessed: he wants to spend a summer climbing an E5 route. This, he believes, will open up any route in the world to him. He shares his passion for climbing with many – which is reflected by the sheer amount of films submitted in the category ‘Mountain Experience’.
Dringo I'r Eitha' distinguishes itself from other climbing films in that it points at realities far beyond sportive exploits. The film inquires into the motivation of young mountaineers, into their way of dealing with failure as well as into the relevance of milieu for the very young climber. The result is a gripping and very personal portrait, whose intimacy with all protagonists singles it out.

Prize in the Category ‘Mountain Life’

Churubamba – Frauen am Ball
Churubamba – Women Having a Ball
Director: Carmen Butta

Women who play soccer are no great exception. Women who play soccer but know nothing of David Beckham or Michael Ballack and the 2010 World Cup might be one – women who run after the ball in their traditional attire in a small mountain village of the Andes – definitely!
Moreover, these women have a complete ball when they’re at it. This enthusiasm has caught on with the jury.
Sport for these women is not only a means of escaping the daily routine of working the fields, livestock farming and household chores, but also an important livelihood. The prizes gained – live chicks or seed potatoes – benefit the whole village community.
Churubamba – Women Having a Ball is a humorous film which conveys fascinating traditions in an authentic and entertaining way.

Prize in the Category ‘Mountain Nature’

Leise rieselt der Schnee
Slowly the Snow Falls
Director: Klaus Steindl

Snow – a word to melt on your tongue. A word that triggers a vast host of associations and childhood memories: fond ones of skiing, but also of freezing cold, avalanches, ice. What would Christmas be without snow? And what indeed is snow, how is it created?
The documentary Slowly the Snow Falls looks into these questions. Outstanding cinematography and imagery await the viewer. The film’s scientific, cultural and philosophical inquiries are based on excellent research – it covers its topic of snow in all its facets, over 52 enthralling minutes.

Extra Category: ‘Mountain Animals’

Yak!
Director: Jan Kerckhoff

Yaks are the most important pack animals of the Himalayas. Without them, thousand of porters, merchants and farmers could not survive. The film Yak! by Jan Kerckhoff follows the journey of a heavily laden caravan through the borderland between China and Nepal. It displays the great difficulties met by man and animal on this arduous trek in impressive fashion. The result is a highly dramatic animal feature that draws viewers in completely as well as imparting profound knowledge about the region, its people and the film’s protagonist, the yak.

Prize for the best Entry by a Junior Film Maker

El ultimo Hielero del Chimborazo
The Last Ice-Bringer of Chimborazo
Director: Anne Farrer

This year, the Prize reserved for the most promising Junior Film Maker goes to French director
Anne Farrer for El ultimo Hielero del Chimborazo (‘The Last Ice-Bringer of Chimborazo’). Her film describes the quotidian life of a man who extracts mountain ice for consumption in Ecuador. Day after day old, Balthasar Ushca ascends a glacier located at five thousand metres above sea level to transport its ice back down to the valley. In an age of fridges and freezers his profession is becoming extinct. Images of empathetic and lyrical quality achieve an impressive portrait of this man as well as of his native region and its particular cultural features.

Jury Award for an ‘Exceptional Film’

Olga e il tempo
Olga and Time
Director & Cameraman: Manuele Cecconello

The category ‘Exceptional Film’ grants the jury an opportunity to reward a film whose narrative structure, aesthetics and artistic aspirations stand out, a film which overcomes viewer expectations in terms of both content and formal choices. This year’s ‘exceptional film’ documents a rather uneventful day in the life of Olga Valcauda, of her activities on the mountain: cooking dinner, her mother making soap, rain coming and going, Olga looking after the animals. Olga e il tempo portrays farming life in a truly poetic and differentiated way. For the jury, it qualifies as an exceptional documentary.

Award for the most convincing Portrayal of Landscape

Baffin: L'île aux enfants
Baffin – The Children’s Island
Director: Sam Beaugey

Certain landscapes captivate the onlooker at first sight. The seemingly hostile ice deserts of Baffin Island are like that. Six friends leave France for this jagged region, to discover new climbing routes through its towering rock faces. With Baffin – The Children’s Island, Director Sam Beaugey carries his viewers off to a remote corner of the world that fascinates mountaineers, BASE jumpers and adventurers alike. He unveils the diverse visual and other creative opportunities offered up by an otherwise barren region.

Award for the most Outstanding Camera Work

Olga e il tempo
Olga and Time
Director & Camera: Manuele Cecconello

This year’s award for Best Camera goes to a film that convinced the jury by means of absolutely outstanding cinematography. A film that breaks with the established traditions of camera work in surprising ways. Its images are not beautiful in a classic sense, not overblown or smarmy – they are not even in colour. The entire feature does without artificial lighting and tripods – not even the focus is altered at any point. Camera work is thus reduced to a minimum of creative license and thus has to do overtime to achieve its goals – as the film renounces all commentary and interviews. Finally, the jury is impressed by the courage and determination that inform this perfect translation into film of the raw and monotonous reality lived by shepherdess Olga from the Piedmont.