Agassizhorn: Mountain of Shame

Etched in Bone(en)

Drawing on original footage from National Geographic, Etched in Bone explores the impact of one notorious bone theft by a member of the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. Hundred of bones were stolen and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, until it became known to Arnhem elders in the late 1990s. The return of the sacred artefacts was called for, resulting in a tense standoff between indigenous tribespeople and the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian.

Four Faces of the Moon(en)

Follow the animated journey of an Indigenous photographer as she travels through time. The oral and written history of her family reveals the story — we witness the impact and legacy of the railways, the slaughter of the buffalo and colonial land policies.

Profession grimpeur, Eric Escoffier(fr)

A documentary portrait of the legend Eric Escoffier at the height of his mountaineering career. A true athlete, Escoffier has comprehensive, cutting-edge preparation in three different climbing disciplines: rock climbing, ice climbing and solo free climbing, without any safety devices. Philippe Lallet's camera follows Eric in his performances and in his preparation for one of the first La Sportroccia climbing competitions, in 1985 in Bardonecchia in Italy.

The Writer from a Country Without Bookstores(es)

The ruthless dictator Teodoro Obiang has ruled Equatorial Guinea with an iron hand since 1979. Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel is the most translated Equatoguinean writer, but he had to flee the country in 2011, after starting a hunger strike denouncing the crimes of the dictatorship. Since then, he has lived in Spain, feeling that, despite the risks, he must return and fight the monster with words.

Rainier: The Mountain(en)

In this retrospective tribute, acclaimed filmmaker Jean Walkinshaw hails the 100th anniversary of Mount Rainier National Park in Washington by talking to those who know it best: the scientists, naturalists, mountain climbers and artists whose lives have been touched by the peak's far-reaching shadow. The result is a harmonious blend of archival material and high-definition footage celebrating an icon of the Pacific Northwest.

Verdon Vertical Mile(fr)

Confusion Valley(de)

The theater group Valendas from the Safiental in the canton of Grisons adapts Friedrich Dürrenmatt's grotesque novel.

Dawn of the Damned(fr)

This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is a film about death. Its most shocking sequences derive from the captured French film archives in Algeria containing - unbelievably - masses of French-shot documentary footage of their tortures, massacres and executions of Algerians. The real death of children, passers-by, resistance fighters, one after the other, becomes unbearable. Rather than be blatant propaganda, the film convinces entirely by its visual evidence, constituting an object lesson for revolutionary cinema.

Man Ray: Prophet of the Avant-Garde(en)

Man Ray, the master of experimental and fashion photography was also a painter, a filmmaker, a poet, an essayist, a philosopher, and a leader of American modernism. Known for documenting the cultural elite living in France, Man Ray spent much of his time fighting the formal constraints of the visual arts. Ray’s life and art were always provocative, engaging, and challenging.

Robbed of Truth(en)

This is the true story of Fetim Salam, a Saharawi refugee falsely portrayed as a slave in the Australian documentary 'Stolen'. Australian filmmakers, Violeta Ayala and Daniel Fallshaw, travel to the Saharawi refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria in 2007 and claim to discover 20,000 slaves in the camps run by the independence movement Polisario Front. Refugees are outraged for being portrayed as slaves, and humanitarian aid workers are incredulous about these allegations as they know the camps intimately. Filmmaker Carlos Gonzalez retraces their steps in search of the truth and finds a web of lies, misinformation and Moroccan operatives reshaping the truth.

Standard Operating Procedure(en)

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Moving Ice(en)

Ice has always moved. When glaciation took hold some 34 million years ago, interconnected rivers of ice combined to produce the Earth's vast ice sheets. As temperatures slowly warmed glaciers developed a unique balancing act; advancing and retreating to calibrate their annual winter accumulation against summer melt. Sometimes calving colossal icebergs into the sea. A positive feedback loop that has regulated the movement of ice for millions of years.

White Winter(de)

In southern Germany, winter can still be admired in all its glory every year. With its white coat of snow and icicles and myriads of small crystals that look like geometric works of art. In the valleys and on the slopes the snow is still so thick every year that the alpine huts are snowed in up to the windows. Cows and dairymen are safe in their farms at lower altitudes. But not the wild creatures of the mountains! They need strategies to survive the cold season and to defy snow masses, cold and ice. And some seem to do it so easily that they even raise their young in the middle of winter. But how do animals, plants and fungi cope with the annually recurring ice age, which from our perspective is a time of need? The many adaptations in nature prove that winter is an integral part of the natural cycle of the year and the living environment of species. They are adapted to cold and frost. That is why the animals and plants at the edge of the Alps suffer particularly from climate change!

Generation Dry(fr)

It is a fact that our winters are less and less cold. Therefore it is harder and harder to get the conditions for ice-climbing. Fortunately, man adapts to his environment and makes progress: this is how dry-tooling was born. This movie will make you discover this discipline: its history, its evolution and the current practice. You will also see how much excitement dry tooling can bring. Dry-tooling now allows to free-climb some routes which were impossible to climb without aid in the past.

Black Scarves(sh)

Postwar life of eight remaining inhabitants of Strmec, a village located in the very corner of Slovenian Alps near Italian border. When local partisans killed a German officer, the Nazi occupiers shot all males in the village as an act of revenge; those who remained are seven women of different age who traditionally wear black scarves, and young boy who hasn't any friends to play with.

The eloquence of blood(xx)

Short film made from photographs taken by anthropologist and photojournalist Rogério Ferrari in Palestinian territories in 2002.

Best Of E.O.F.T. No. 8(de)

The best films of the European Outdoor Film Tour 11/12.

Der grosse Kanton(de)

Is the solution to Switzerland's future to integrate Germany into the confederation? After all, like Michael Ringier, CEO of the Ringier media group, says, blithely ignoring all minorities, we're very close in culture and language. Oskar Freysinger takes out his guitar and sings his answer. Politicians from French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino think expanding will help the country survive. The former German foreign minister thinks the two countries' traditions are too different. The banker Oswald Grübel is worried about Germany's debts, although he'd be prepared to take over its assets. With serious interviews interspersed with gags (boat people on Lake Constance, the last Habsburger as a peasant), Giaccobbo gathers off-the-cuff reactions which reveal a lot about the different mentalities. The movie laughs at preconceived notions, redefines neutrality and reflects on what designates a nation. Switzerland, which loves to teach the world a lesson, will soon helvetize the planet, oder?

Chamonix - Mont Blanc, Une histoire de conquêtes(fr)

Pierre Mazeaud, la vie en face(s)(fr)

Pierre Mazeau has managed to unite three of his passions which seem to have nothing in common, at a very high level: mountaineering, jurisprudence and policy. The Everest mountaineer, rescued from the Freney Pillar, the passionate jurist, the former sports minister, privy counsellor, and president of the French Constitutional Court is a charismatic personality. This sensitive film portrait follows a line, which Pierre Mazeaud himself has quoted: “Alpinism belongs to those who provide themselves with means to reach their goals, to those who are fully committed to a goal, to those, who know the value of solidarity of men, and to those who are aware that true human existence can only be fulfilled by proceeding with a team of roped-partners.”