Nordwand (2008)

Nordwand: Directed by Philipp Stölzl. With Benno Fürmann, Johanna Wokalek, Florian Lukas, Simon Schwarz. A secretary at a Berlin newspaper in 1936 gets to write about two alpinists as she knows them well. She later gets to report on/photograph her friends’ and other alpinists’ climb of the dangerous Swiss Eiger north face.

“This is one of the best mountaineering films I have ever seen. It is one of the great mountaineering stories in the history of climbing. If you have a chance to see it, go the extra mile to get there. I was fortunate enough to see it at UC Irvine, Sneak Previews with Michael Berlin. I have been climbing most of my long life and have been watching climbing films for 40 years, this one really gives a sense of what it is really like in full conditions. This movie opens in the USA in January in New York and in Feb in the Los Angeles area. I really hope that people will support this film and that it gets to travel to other more remote parts of the country. Made in Germany in 2008, and widely supported there, I was pleasantly surprised by the non Hollywood style. It is almost like it was filmed in 1936 when the actual event transpired. Enjoy and support!”