Published on 03/28/2024
The restored version of the Italian edition of Werner Herzog’s documentary will be screened on Friday 3 May at the Teatro Sociale in the presence of the protagonist, Reinhold Messner: an evening event in collaboration with Enervit, VIGGO and Werner Herzog Film, forty years after the undertaking and since the film’s release.
Summer 1984: Reinhold Messner and Hans Kammerlander are engaged in one of the greatest Himalayan mountaineering feats ever attempted until then: linking two eight-thousanders, Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II, in pure Alpine style, without oxygen, without external supports. With them is Werner Herzog, busy filming a documentary on that expedition, destined to bring mountaineering into a new era. It was born like this The shining mountain (Gasherbrum – Der leuchtende Berg)an intense and very modern documentary that documents the approach phases, the stay at the base camp, the departure for the peaks, the return and the immediately subsequent phases, focusing not so much on the performance and technical aspect, but on the psychology of the two protagonists.
Forty years after the undertaking and the release of the film, the Trento Film Festival has included a special evening event in the program, with the screening of the restored version of the Italian edition of the documentary in the presence of one of the two protagonists, Reinhold Messner. The appointment is Friday 3 May at 9.00 pm at the Teatro Sociale of Trento.
The restoration of the Italian edition, edited in 1984 by Reinhold Messner, was carried out by Piero Crispino at the Artech Digital Cinema Srl laboratory, thanks to the collaboration between Enervit – which participated in the expedition as a technical and scientific sponsor – with VIGGO Srl, Werner Herzog Film GmbH and Reinhold Messner.
«The Trento Film Festival confirms itself as the most important stage at an international level for reflecting on the history, present and future of the world’s mountains» says Mauro Leveghi, president of the Trento Film Festival. «In this reflection, a director like Werner Herzog has a leading role and it is no coincidence that his name is now part of the history of the Festival, as is that of Reinhold Messner. In the last edition Herzog won the Golden Gentian for Best Exploration or Adventure Film with the beautiful The Fire Within: A Requiem For Katia And Maurice Krafft, and in 2020 right here in Trento the International Alliance for Mountain Films awarded him the Grand Prix, for the attention he has dedicated to the world of the mountains through his work. The Shining Mountain was screened at the Festival for the first time in 1985, as soon as it was released, and it is with great emotion that we now host the screening of the restored version of the Italian edition and the return of Reinhold Messner to the stage.”
