Alptraum - Das letzte Abenteuer

Refuges

In 1966, John Harlin II died while attempting Europe's most difficult climb, the North Face of the Eiger in Switzerland. 40 years later, his son John Harlin III, an expert mountaineer and the editor of the American Alpine Journal, returns to attempt the same climb.

While being transferred to another prison, two convicts - Stéphane Carella and Paul Brandon - effect a miraculous escape. They are pursued across the Verdon Gorge before arriving at an isolated farmhouse whose owner, Laura, offers them sanctuary. Since the death of her husband, Laura has longed to get her own back on the police and she agrees to help Carella and Brandon in their scheme to rob a casino in Nice. After a shoot out with the casino’s owners, Carella realises that not everything is what it seems. Brandon is not what he appears...

A classical art professor and collector, who doubles as a professional assassin, is coerced out of retirement to avenge the murder of an old friend.

In 1961 the southern face of the Central Pillar of Mont Blanc was still unclimbed. Two roped parties of climbers decided to come together to attempt to open a new route. Four days of violent storms caught the climbers just 80 metres from the summit. Of the seven climbers, only three returned home. One of the most intense and dramatic events in the history of climbing relives on the big screen, thanks to accounts and images of the feat.

Sepp Holzer explains some of the innovative, labour-saving agricultural techniques he applies at his farm in the Eastern Alps of Salzburg, Austria.

Looking at whether the history of early human evolution should be rewritten. For decades, most experts have been convinced that Africa is the cradle of mankind and many fossil finds from Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and Chad seemed to prove it.

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!

Documentary on one of the first editions of the Trofeo Mezzalama, the highest ski mountaineering race in Europe, at more than 4,200 meters above sea level, which takes place on the glaciers of Monte Rosa, from Breuil to Gressoney-La-Trinité, crossing the summits of Castor (4,199 meters) and Nez du Liskamm (4,100 meters). The film recounts the last hours of feverish preparation before the start, the teams preparing for the race linked in ropes, then follows the stages of the competition by following the groups of skiers from a plane. Created in 1933, the Trofeo Mezzalama was contested until 1938, before falling into oblivion during the war. A second version was organized from 1970 to 1973. A third biannual version has been organized since 1997.

Sports enthusiast Ernest is to cover 6,000 kilometers on his motorcycle in 15 days, crossing Austria, Italy, Switzerland, the Balkans and Czechoslovakia.

Herdsman Fabiano will be a father soon. He owns fifty goats and eight cows and is trying his best to produce the alpine cheese that his hippie parents made a name for themselves with in the '70s, in an isolated valley of Ticino. But nothing is going the way it should. He's in debt, and feels guilty for a fatal accident which occurred the previous year, which haunts him. How can he and his girlfriend build a life together under such difficult circumstances?

The two unemployed engineers Franzl and Bertl want to be the first to climb the Matterhorn from the dangerous north face. They travel by bicycle with Mizzl and Traudl but without telling them about their intentions. The women accompany them on the assumption that it is a touristical trip. All four camp in a tent at the foot of the Matterhorn and Franzl and Bertl secretly begin the dangerous ascent. The girls will have to follow the ascent together with the residents of the village and the guests of the mountain hotel using binoculars. The role of Franzl is played by Franz Schmid, the actual conqueror of the north face of the Matterhorn together with his brother Toni in 1931.

Follows freeskiers Heitz and Anthamatten as they travel to the world’s high-altitude mountain ranges and attempt to make their distinct mark on those giant peaks, exploring the absolute limit of human possibility.

September, 1945. Sebastian impatiently waits for the return of his friend Angelina, whom he has not seen for two years. When the plane carrying the young woman to her small village in the Alps is reported to have crashed in the mountains, Sebastian is convinced that Angelina is still alive. Along with his faithful dog Belle, Sebastian embarks on the most dangerous adventure of his life.

In 1910, Arrigo Frusta and the operator Giovanni B. Vitrotti took the camera up to the 4000 meters high of the Mont Blanc chain to make three short mountaineering films for the Società Anonima Ambrosio. They were the first in Italy to realize documentaries in the high mountains. In this first film, a party of three mountaineers, including Arrigo Frusta make a mountaineering traverse in the Mont Blanc Massif. The purpose of the film is not to show a concret ascent, but to show the beauty and spectacularity of the high mountain landscapes and the the fascination of those who venture to conquer the high peaks. The other two films of the series are: 'Da Courmayeur al Colle del Gigante' and 'Sulle dentate scintillanti'.

Junta is hated by the people in the village where she lives, especially by the women, who suspect her of being a witch. Only she can climb the nearby mountains to a cave high up, whence a mysterious blue light glows when the moon is full. Many young men of the village have died trying to follow her. She is driven out of town, and takes to living in the mountains. Eventually she shares the secret of the blue light with one man, and he betrays it.

Cumbre

Selfish Chris Teller pressures his older brother, a retired climber, to accompany him on a treacherous Alpine climb to loot the bodies of plane crash victims.

Making of the cinematographic shooting of "Premier de cordée" directed by Louis Daquin in the Mont-Blanc massif. In 1943. Alain Pol films the risky adventure of filming in the high mountains with a team of seventy people. The images of the making-of reveal the technical constraints encountered by the actors and technicians: falling rocks, crossing glaciers and long approach walks at altitude to the filming locations. Six actors and technicians will also be injured and the main role - that of Pierre - will be reassigned to André Le Gall following a bad fall by Roger Pigaut.

Veteran Chamonix mountain guide Michel Servoz and the young aspiring guide Patrick Falavier attempt to climb the west face of the Dru in the Mont-Blanc massif. When they are gone for five days, the captain of the gendarmerie in Morteau is worried, but he cannot undertake research for a rescue without the permission of the family.