Im Kampf mit dem Berge is one of the very first mountain films. The pioneer of this genre, Arnold Fanck, shot much of the footage for this film at over 4,000 metres in the Matterhorn-Monte Rosa region. He captured the swirling of a snowstorm as impressively as a lonely ridge.
It is sometimes referred to by film enthusiasts as an Alpine symphony. With the new musical composition arranged by Kevin Toma (b. Sittard, 1974), this live performance promises to be quite a spectacle.
Fanck contrasts the overpowering forces of nature with the travails of the insignificant mountain climbers Hannes Schneider and Ilse Rohde, who search their way across a crevasse-riven glacier to the summit of Lyskamm. They start their descent at sundown and with only the light of the moon to guide them, they make every effort to reach the Monte Rosa hut before the storms breaks.
This screening has been made possible with the help of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung (www.murnau-stiftung.de) in Wiesbaden. This film foundation has had the film restored. Because the original had been lost, archive material from Vienna, Berlin and Moscow had to be put together again. The order of the scenes and titles was based on references in the score of Paul Hindemith’s original composition.
