„Land der Berge“ (The Wild Kamnik–Savinja Alps)

Land der Berge (Land of Mountains) explores little-known terrain in a landscape of fairy-tale beauty. The Vellach Kotschna is a high alpine valley in the Kamnik–Savinja Alps and forms the southernmost corner of Carinthia as well as Austria, located along the border with Slovenia. It lies within the municipality of Eisenkappel-Vellach and has been a protected nature reserve since 1959.

Local people also speak of the so-called “Stone Curtain” – an expression from days gone by, when this area represented not only a literal dead end because of the towering 2,200-meter rock face. The cultural diversity of the region’s small-scale enterprises has long since overcome the borders that were always difficult to cross and has become a source of enrichment for the entire region.

What remains unchanged, however, is the unique geology of the easternmost extension of the Southern Alps, the Kamnik–Savinja Alps, with their steep and narrow mountain passes. For this reason, these routes were once used by smugglers. Dense forests blend seamlessly into rugged and sometimes bizarre rock formations that are both admired and feared by mountaineers, as several of the documentary’s protagonists vividly describe.

Among them is Zdravko Haderlap, who organizes an annual cultural-historical hike across abandoned mountain farms, guided by the principle: “We need stories. We need them in order to understand ourselves.”

This documentary portrays a remarkable border region where nature, history, and cultural heritage are closely intertwined.