Inauguration of the 58th TrentoFilmfestival: “Der Heilige Berg” by Arnold Fanck 106’ (Germany, 1926)

Der heilige Berg (1926) is widely considered to be the first Bergfilm as it contains all of the typical features of a mountain film; it is a whirlwind story of love, friendship and death, a majestic portrait of unforgiving, cloudy peaks, jagged rocks, grand massifs, glaciers and crevices, snowstorms and avalanches, evocatively captured at great risk amidst desolate snowy landscapes. Diotima (Leni Riefenstahl) is a young woman born by the ocean who imitates its power and vitality in a ritual dance. Her heart, however, yearns for the mountains and a man who can conquer them. On a trip to the Alps, she does her “dance of the sea” before a well-to-do audience, among which are two young mountain-climbers who watch her awestruck. Karl (Luis Trenker), the most famous climber in the region, flees to the mountains for the night in order to calm the anxiety that has overcome him. Vigo, a fearless young skier, offers the beautiful dancer edelweiss, and in return receives a silk scarf. Against his mother’s advice, Karl tells Diotima of his feelings for her, but when she returns his affections, he leaves for the mountains to find an altar, sculpted by nature, where they can wed. In the meantime, Diotima cheers Vigo to victory in a skiing race, rushing to congratulate him. By chance, Karl witnesses the scene, but he does not recognise his friend, believing he has lost the young woman’s love to another man. In a moment of desperation, he asks Vigo to join him on a climb of the most treacherous peak in the area. During their ascent, Karl realises that his friend is also in love with Diotima. As Karl advances towards his rival in a jealous rage, Vigo steps backwards, falls off the ledge, and is left dangling by the rope that joins them. As a storm rages about them, Vigo begs his friend to cut the rope and save himself, but Karl, filled with regret, refuses. Delirious with fatigue, Karl dreams that he is leading Diotima to the altar in an ice cathedral. He then plunges to his death with his friend.

Arnold Fanck (6 March 1889, Frankenthal – 28 September 1974, Freiburg im Breisgau)
Arnold Fanck was a German director, geologist and lover of mountain culture whose debut films bore all the hallmarks of documentaries. With the success of Das Wunder des Schneeschuhs (1920) and his follow-up film Im Kampf mit den Bergen (1921), which was set at over 2500 metres, he launched a genre: the “Bergfilm”. In the course of a decade, Fanck gave the history of mountain cinema eight feature films with different stories and endings, but each invigorated by his undying love for the head-on clash between humanity and nature. His harsh, majestic landscapes, breathtaking, inaccessible locations and spectacular, acrobatic footage aspired to a Romantic vision of nature and were imbued with exaggerated rhetoric. His focus on narrative in Der heilige Berg (The Holy Mountain, 1926) confirms this direction, as the plot unfolds against a backdrop of bravery, courage and heroism in the face of nature, alluring and untamed. This film was also the beginning of his work with actress Leni Riefensthal, who began her career starring in mountain films, but went on to direct propaganda films for the Nazis. A classic example of Fanck’s films was Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü (The White Hell of Pitz Palu, 1929), which he co-directed with G.W. Pabst. The story tells of a mountain rescue, one made even more dramatic by the daring of flying ace Ernst Udet. Some of his major 1930s’ works include S.O.S. Eisberg (S.O.S. Iceberg, 1933) and Die Tochter des Samurai (The Samurai’s Daughter, 1937).

Maestro Helmut Imig is one of the world’s greatest experts on film scores and the restoration of original soundtracks. Born in Bonn in 1941, he studied piano and conducting at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. At the same time, he studied Musicology at the University of Bonn. He completed his training as an orchestra conductor under Franco Ferrara in Venice, where he studied Italian melodrama, and under Igor Markevitch in Madrid, where he studied Classical and Romantic symphonies. He has conducted at the Theatre Bremen, as well as in Osnabrück, Essen and Munich. Since 1985, he has been a guest conductor for the Philharmonic Orchestras of Bamberg and Nuremburg, the Beethoven Hall Orchestra of Bonn, the Philharmonia Hungarica, and the Bochum City Philharmonic Orchestra. He has conducted radio and television programmes with the radio orchestras of Munich, Cologne and Lugano. He has also worked abroad with the Maastricht Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Teatro Regio Philharmonic of Turin, the Curitiba Symphonic Orchestra, Brazil, and the Radio Televisione Svizzera Italiana Symphony Orchestra. Over the last few years, he has devoted his time to musical scores for silent films.

The Haydn Orchestra was founded in 1960 by the Provinces and Municipalities of Trento and Bolzano and is recognised as a concert institution by Italy’s Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment. The Orchestra has performed at Italy’s major concert halls and has taken part in a range of festivals across Europe, the United States and Japan.  In the fifty years since its foundation, the Haydn Orchestra has performed a vast repertoire of works covering all music genres, from Baroque to contemporary composers. On a number of occasions, composers such as Dallapiccola, Nono, Berio and Donatoni have entrusted the Orchestra to play the debut of their works.  Many of the world’s foremost conductors have worked with the Haydn Orchestra, including Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Eliahu Inbal, Alain Lombard, Jesús López-Cobos, Riccardo Muti, Daniel Oren and Alberto Zedda.   Gustav Kuhn has been the Haydn Orchestra’s art director since 2003. In 2007, the Haydn Orchestra opened the 55th TrentoFilmFestival where it performed the original score of Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (USA, 1925) conducted by Timothy Brock.