Montagnalibri: among mountains of books, antiquarian bookshops and meetings with authors

MontagnaLibri, the International Review of Mountain Publications, will be the ‘forerunner’ again this year of the 56th TrentoFilmfestival. The opening, on Tuesday 22 April at 6pm in the exhibition site of Piazza Fiera, will be followed at 9pm by the musical reading of Enrico Brizzi and Numero 6 in Piazza Duomo. This will be the start of a fair packed with events and, until 4 May, featuring more than 1000 books, 400 publishers from over 30 countries and about a hundred specialist magazines from all over the world.

The exhibition, organised by Luana Bisesti, displays guidebooks, narratives, photographic books, manuals, studies and researches on the environment, flora, fauna, geology, archaeology, history, war in the mountains, economics and social phenomena, environmental policies, tourism, art, crafts and correlated subjects. Throughout the event MontagnaLibri will also host MontagniLandia, an area entirely dedicated to younger readers, and the Mountain Bookshop, where you can buy classics and new literature in this sector. On 2 and 3 May, MontagnaLibri will also host the traditional Fair of Antiquarian Bookshops of the Alps. A unique opportunity to leaf through, consult and buy old and precious books on mountains, and also postcards, photographs, prints, incisions and posters.
On Tuesday 29 April, the 37th Itas Award for mountain books will be presented in a ceremony held in Buonconsiglio
Castle.

MontagnaLibri is also “Emotions among the pages”: daily meetings with the authors, presentations and round tables examining the subjects presented in the TrentoFilmfestival from a more ‘literary’ point of view. Of particular note among these meetings, beginning on 23 April in the morning, is the presentation, on Thursday 24 April, of the third edition of the CIPRA report on the state of the Alps, edited by CIPRA International. Friday 25 April instead will be dedicated to the promotion of mountain literature in “Voci leggere di giorno e di notte”, a series of appointments held throughout the day, which also include “Brividi in quota”, with the cult author of detective stories Loriano Macchiavelli.

29 April is the “day featuring the bears”, with the participation of Charlie Russel - naturalist and protagonist of the film “The Edge of Eden; Living with Grizzlies” – in a round table on the reintroduction of bears in the Alps, together with representatives of the “Life Ursus” project, followed by the presentation of the book “Bruno e gli altri orsi” by Ruben Frizzera.

On 30 April, two meetings in the Sala della Fondazione Caritro: in the morning with Joe Simpson, a mountaineer and writer, whose fame is linked to the best seller (and film inspired by it) “Touching the void”. Simpson is also the author of the book “The beckoning silence”, on which the film of the same name entered in the competition is based and in which the tragic ascent of Toni Kurz in 1936 is narrated. And in the afternoon Mauro Corona, the alpinist and writer of Erto, will talk to Augusto Golin about his new book “Cani, camosci, cuculi (e un corvo)” published by Mondadori.

On 2 May, another exceptional meeting. This time with Siba Shakib, an Iranian film director, documentarist and writer, authoress of the book "Afghanistan, where God only comes to weep", a story of the fearful day to day life of thousands of men, and especially women in the country of the Taleban. Siba Shakib will talk about her latest book “The child who didn’t exist”, an international best seller translated into thirteen languages and at the top of the best-sellers’ list in many countries.

Also on Friday 2 May Patrizio Roversi, the “traveller by chance”, will return to the TrentoFilmfestival and in the Sala della Fondazione Caritro at 7pm will talk to Emilio Rigatti, the “cycling traveller” who pedalled for 2000 km through Italy from Venice to Reggio Calabria along the Apennines, far from the traditional tourist routes. In the book “Italia fuori rotta” (Ediclico Publishers) the author narrates his experience full of encounters.

On Saturday 3 May, in the afternoon, in the Sala Conferenze della Fondazione Cassa di
Risparmio di Trento e Rovereto, the well-known television journalist Marco Mazzocchi, presenter of Domenica Sportiva, will talk to Claudio Tessarolo about the dramatic Italian expedition to K2 in July 2007 and the tragic loss of the Umbrian mountain guide Stefano Zavka, narrated in his book “K2 la vetta infranta”. Marco Mazzocchi followed the whole expedition from base camp and linked by radio with the alpinists of the expedition - Nardi, Vielmo and Zavka – witnessed the climb, the joy of reaching the top and the dramatic ending. The film of this unfortunate expedition, “K2 il sogno infranto”, will be screened during the same day.