2023-10-31 07:49:34
Director Wolfgang Tonninger made a film documentary regarding the hunt. Very close to the hunters and very poetic at the same time – the main roles feature Abtenau huntsmen.
Together with Walter Fanninger, he is responsible for films such as “Shadows of Light” (which was named Europe’s best independent documentary in Paris) and “Everyman Traveling” – which won at film festivals in New York and Toronto. Now the filmmaker, who was born in Bad Aussee and lives in Abtenau, has completed a new work that is celebrating its cinema premiere in Salzburg. “Wild in the Mountains. Meditations on Hunting” is the title of the film, which attempts to follow the quiet sounds of the hunt and to track down the archaic. The whole thing happens outside of historical appropriation. The intensive relationship that people in the mountains enter into with the wild and the untamed is also highlighted.
Tonninger was able to win well-known stars such as the extreme climber and hunter Thomas Huber and Salzburg’s state hunter Max Mayr-Melnhof, the Abtenau professional hunters Toni Wintersteller and Hans and David Putz as the main protagonists. The field of main actors is rounded off by the farmer and hunter Hans Thaler and Werner Brehm, an innkeeper and community hunter – both also come from Abtenau. Behind the camera were Abtenauer Tom Höll as well as Lothar Hofer and Vera Polaschegg. On average, Harald Schwarzmann supported.
It is a film regarding being alone and being exposed in the mountains as soon as you leave the beaten path. A film regarding the “sweat” of the hunter and the sweat or blood of the game. But the mysterious bond that connects the hunter with nature and which is repeatedly torn by the shot also finds its place in this film. The result is intimate views of the hunt. A quiet and sensitive meditation on killing and the human relationship with nature.
Wolfgang Tonninger is not a hunter himself, but an alpinist. “As a climber, you automatically have to do with hunting. In the mountains I often go far away from marked paths because you don’t meet anyone or hunters,” he explains. Tonninger is fascinated by the closeness to nature that hunters have: “Good hunters are trackers. They read the landscape and know every sign in the forest,” says the filmmaker. During the 14 days of filming, his view of hunting also changed. Even if he forgot all regarding positioning while filming: “Curiosity beats opinion. Anyone who takes documentaries seriously moves with their mouths open.”
Wolfgang Tonninger’s film will be shown in its unabridged 61-minute version in November on Tuesday, November 14th, 8 p.m. at the Bergfilmfestival in Salzburg’s Das Kino. Extreme climber Thomas Huber and director Wolfgang Tonninger are on stage as live guests.
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