Silvo Karo

Silvo Karo. Mountaineering virtuous Silvo Karo (Slovenia) began his mountain odyssey three decades ago, in 1977. In his illustrious sporting career he has actively helped to shape modern mountaineering with his achievements. The mountains of Patagonia are those in which he completed numerous successful mountaineering expeditions, climbing many routes including first ascents. Silvo’s essay on the granite Patagonian giants even found its place in the book ‘Voices from the Summit’ published by the National Geographic. Silvo Karo soon revealed yet another talent in the steep walls: an amazing feeling for operating the camera.

In 1987 he took a 16mm Bolex film camera with him to the south face of Cerro Torre and made a film which was awarded the prestigious Trento’s Silver Gentian for the best mountaineering film. Working as a cameraman he helped creating a television programme ‘Gore in Ljudje’ on the Slovenian national television. As the founding father and director of the Slovenian Mountaineering Film Festival Domžale he has upgraded his rich mountaineering path with culture. He was a member of the prominent juries of international mountain film festivals: Trento, Banff, Graz, Kendal, Poprad, Teplice, Bratislava ... He has hosted as a lecturer on almost every continent of the world and his lectures on mountaineering have always been extremely popular. Silvo is an honorary member of the British Alpine Club and his contribution to global and Slovenian mountaineering is highly appreciated in his homeland, a mountaineering country Slovenia. His reputation is evident from the fact that on his fiftieth birthday Silvo Karo was conferred the State Decoration, Order for Services by the President of the Republic of Slovenia Dr Danilo Türk.

Marco Ribetti

Born in 1967, he started work with the Turin Museo Nazionale della Montagna in 1993 and since 1996 has been the conservator of the Historical Archive of Cinema and Video, responsible for the technical area. Since then he has directed more than 100 exhibitions, dedicated to all aspects of mountaineering, alpinism and exploration. In the majority of cases, he has followed numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad, taking care of logistics and transfer.

Currently he deals with the acquisition, cataloguing and management of material filmed for the Cineteca Storica and the Museum’s Video Library, which currently has some 3,500 titles in cinema and video documentaries, films, and advertisements, old and new, which cover all aspects of mountaineering. In the last few years he has worked on the digitalisation and archiving of professional video.

He writes about cinema in mountaineering and alpinism magazines, paying particular attention to films made in the Alps and in the rest of the world.

He frequently attends the major festivals of the sector and regularly participates in the meetings of the International Alliance for Mountain Film, the association which brings together the main bodies which promote mountain film on a world scale, and of which the Museo della Montagna was one of the founders in the year 2000.

In his free time he prefers to escape the archives to go rock climbing and skiing…

Gabriela Kühn

Coorganiser and vice director of the festival Meetings with Mountain Film organized since seven years in Tatra Mountains in Poland. From the beginning of the festival responsible for international relations and programming of the event, which was set up as an initiative of a group of students and became an official event of the city of Zakopane and member of The International Alliance for Mountain Film.

Graduated in foreign languages and comparative literature. Translates films and books from Italian, English and French. Holds E.MA’s degree in Human Rights and Democratisation as well as in project management, and organizes various initiatives concerning human rights issues. Student jury member at Trento Film Festival (2001) and jury member at Cervino Cine Mountain Festival (2010). In her free time enjoys climbing and ski-touring.

Photo: Pawe  Glogowski

Zaloa Borda

B.A. in Fine Art from the University of the Basque Country. She started her professional career as a producer of news programmes in ETB (Basque Television) on 11th September 2001. After some years producing news programmes and live sports programmes, she moved on to co-ordinate the artistic department of ETB3, a sports and culture channel aimed at a young audience.

For a number of years she has covered and produced special programmes about the San Sebastian Film Festival, the international Jazz Festivals of the Basque capital cities, the Sundance Festival and the Vitoria-Gasteiz Mendi Film Festival among others. She has directed, produced and post-produced the programme about cinema in original version “Zinemateka” in ETB, and the production of the programme about short films “Film laburrak” is also hers. Her relationship with the world of mountaineering has been captured in the production of various documentaries for the series “7 Walls 7 Continents” by brothers Eneko and Iker Pou. She currently works as a news programmes producer in the Basque public television.

Javier Alonso Aldama

Mountaineer, rambler and nature lover (he prefers the Greek word fisiolatra, but the Spanish Royal Academy doesn’t recognise it). He has loved climbing from the first day he tied himself to a rope, and even today, every time he is tied to someone, he feels like he’s about to take part in something miraculous. Honorary member of the High Mountains Group of the Spanish Mountain Federation. In a previous time he became a member of the National School of High Mountains.

Teacher of Greek language and literature. Vice-deacon of the Arts Faculty of the University of the Basque Country. Secretary of the European Society for Neo-Hellenic Studies, Treasurer and member of the Spanish Society for Neo-Hellenic Studies. Member of the editorial board of the magazines Neo-Hellenic Studies, Erytheia and Pio konda stin Ellada. Founder member

of the Society for the Study of Greco-Medieval Popular Literature (ΔΕΜΔΕΓ). He has been a finalist in the national prize for translation. He has translated Greek works from different epochs into Basque and Spanish. He greatly admired Walter Bonatti, whose death he has deeply felt, for many things, but lately for considering him greater than rocks and poetry. In the desktop background on his computer you can see a climber getting past an overhang on the island of Calimnos, whilst the sun rules over the Aegean and its islands in the last glimmers of the day.