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Alpine Fire

MOUNTAIN TRILOGY

1F

Oct. 3Oct. 14, 2020

  • Official Site → https://gnome15.com/mountain/

  • Contact: gnome 03-5919-1542
  • Oct. 3Oct. 14, 2020
  • Closed Oct. 5, 12
  • Admission:Adults ¥1,800/College Students and High School Students ¥1,500/Junior High School Students and over 60 ¥1,100

■Program
Alpine Fire
We Mountain People in the Mountains
The Green Mountain

Running Time


Mountain trilogy contains three mountain movies by Fredi M. Murer, such as We Mountain People in the Mountains, Alpine Fire, and The Green Mountain. Alpine Fire, the outstanding fiction film by Murer, won 1985 the Locarno Filmfestival and was elected best Swiss Film ever by the members of the Swiss Film Academy. It is a kind of trilogy on the Swiss mountains.

"Alpine Fire"


This film follows a family of four who have no access to water or electricity, and who make their living mostly through subsistence farming. Other than the shopping trips the father makes down the mountain, the family has no direct communication with anyone at all except each other, save perhaps a wave through the telescope at grandparents living across the valley. The deaf-mute son is in his late teens. He grows up peacefully alongside his sister, who has given up on being a teacher, although he doesn’t hide his impatience at being disabled. One day he becomes exasperated with a lawnmower that has broken down and throws it away, which angers his father. The sister brings food to her brother in the mountain hut where he lives alone. They enjoy time together huddled around a campfire on the peak of the mountain, but his sister’s eventual pregnancy later comes to light . . .

Höhenfeuer SWITZERLAND / 1985 / Swiss-German / Color / 35mm / 117 min
Director, Script: Fredi M. Murer
Photography: Pio Corradi
Editing: Helena Gerber
Sound: Florian Eidenbenz
Music: Mario Beretta
Art Directors: Bernhard Sauter, Edith Peyer
Costume: Greta Roderer
Cast: Thomas Nock, Johanna Lier, Rolf Illig, Dorothea Moritz, Jörg Odermatt, Tilli Breidenbach



"We Mountain People in the Mountains"

This feature-length documentary was filmed in the mountain ranges of the canton of Uri where Murer was born. It is divided by area into three parts. In the first part, shot in a valley in Göschenen, the balance of the natural environment is ruined due to the construction of a tunnel, and it is suggested that the local ranching business will soon go bankrupt. The Schächen Valley, which serves as the setting of the second part, is still home to farmers who use traditional ranching methods designed for plateaus. Here, most political choices are made through a system of direct democracy. The third part documents the life of residents of Bristen in the Maderaner Valley, where the majority must leave the area by car for work since it is difficult to keep the community running with ranching alone. This film not only highlights the districts that it focuses on, it also contains many elements that connect directly to Alpine Fire, such as various folkloric themes and the insularity of the communities. Since the villagers’ stories can be heard offscreen, it is almost as if their own gaze is being thrown back silently at the audience.

Wir Bergler in den Bergen sind eigentlich nicht schuld, dass wir da sind
SWITZERLAND / 1974 / Swiss-German / Color / 16mm / 108 min
Director: Fredi M. Murer
Script: Fredi M. Murer, Jean-Pierre Hoby, Georg Kohler
Photography: Iwan Schumacher
Editing: Fredi M. Murer, Eveline Brombacher
Sound: Luc Yersin
Scripter, Lighting: Benny Lehman



"The Green Mountain"

This documentary film is part of the “mountain trilogy” alongside We Mountain People in the Mountains and Alpine Fire. In 1988, NAGRA (National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste) announced that it would construct a permanent waste disposal site in Wellenberg, Nidwalden, which spurned the creation of a protest group by local residents. Not only does Murer interview both those who support and those who oppose the construction, especially among the Alpine farmers who live in Wellenberg, he begins his approach to the issue by proposing the problem of the scale involved, which is greater than the time scale needed to measure human life. The research and debates all center around the people who will be directly impacted, namely the families who have lived in Wellenberg for many generations. They want to protect their roots since they are confronting a reality in which the earth on which they live might be stolen away from them at any moment. Murer dedicated this film to “the children, and the children of these children,” posing a cutting question to adults who must take responsibility for the next generation. In this sense, The Green Mountain can be thought of as a preview of Full Moon, which was produced eight years afterwards.

Der grüne Berg
SWITZERLAND / 1990 / Swiss-German / Color / 16mm / 128 min
Director, Script: Fredi M. Murer
Photography: Pio Corradi
Editing: Kathrin Plüss
Sound: Florian Eidenbenz

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