TGR Montagne

A half hour of trips, investigations and conversations for those who are in the mountains year round, and who love and brave them. TGR Montagne is a transmission of TGR – the regional television programs of RAI, directed by Alberto Maccari – in collaboration with the Piedmont region, produced in the new virtual TV 7 studio in RAI’s Turin production centre. It is broadcast from October to June every Friday at 9:15 a.m. on RAI 2.
With its studio guests and reporters, this program explores a part of Italy that is oft en overshadowed by the noise of the plain. Along with on-going problems such as depopulation, it showcases news issues, innovative cultural proposals, and avant-garde entrepreneurs. And it gives voice to those who look to the highlands for an innovative answer to the problems of a complex society in precarious balance.
Fundamental to this territorial research is the synergy with all of the regional RAI newsrooms. TGR has six hundred journalists in its various headquarters, who therefore off er an articulated — and decidedly up-to-the-minute — vision of the reality of mountain areas, both in Italy and in other countries, with particular attention paid to the economic and cultural activities that off er new strategies for life in the mountains. In this way, an anthology of many voices emerges: farmers and businessmen, shepherds and Alpinists, writers and professionals, directors and tradesmen, and workers in tourism and sports who have chosen to continue, or in some cases return or experiment, life at high altitude. TGR Montagne has recounted and documented this choice since 2005 when the program, conceived on the occasion of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, was called Soprattutto.
Th us began the reports on sustainable tourism, the development of new activities linked to the transformation of territorial products, and the opening of new environmentally compatible industries, but also about local cultures (with particular attention paid to the linguistic minorities: Occitans, Franco-Provençals, Walsers, Cimbri, Tirolese, and speakers of Mocheno…) and their traditions, festivals, and special events, as well as Alpine expeditions and sports competitions at high elevations. Prominent attention is given to the activities of the parks, from the Gran Paradiso to the Madonie, passing through the Aspromonte, the Cinque Terre, the Sulcis, the Pollino and the Adamello. Finally, the works of art and monuments of special relevance are featured, as these are oft en unknown to the wider public and include such jewels as Notre Dame de Fontaine in the Valle del Roja, considered the “Sistine Chapel of the Alps”, and the rupestrian chapels of Matera and Mottola.
Many of those interviewed for the program have told their stories of daily and intellectual labors, from the Umbrian mule-driver to the coal vendor of the Sibillini mountains, from the shepherds of the Abruzzo to the cheese-makers of the Alps, from the beekeepers of Liguria to the geologist from Piedmont, the Sardinian cheese producer and the investment counselor from Friuli. And then, Giorgio Bocca, Dacia Maraini, Maurizio Nichetti, Carlo Sgorlon, Erri De Luca, Mario Brunello, Andrea Zanzotto, Giuliano Montaldo, Vittorio De Seta, Giorgio Diritti, Paolo Rumiz, Michele Serra, Francesco Guccini, Margherita Oggero, Mauro Corona, Carlo Petrini, Bruno Bozzetto, Davide Van de Sfroos, Uto Ughi, Salvatore Accardo, Lou Dalfi n, Sergio Valzania, Dario Vergassola, Fredo Valla, Ricky Gianco, Marco Revelli, Massimo Romagnoli, Marco Aime, Alessandro Perissinotto, Enrico Camanni, Kay Rush, Annibale Salsa, Angelo and Laura D’Arrigo, Stefania Belmondo, Arianna Follis, and Manuela di Centa. Naturally there are also many Alpinists: Walter Bonatti, Reinhold Messner, Nives Meroi, Cesare Maestri, Silvio Mondinelli, Kurt Diemberger, Patrick Gabarrou, Erahard Loretan, Manolo, Fausto De Stefani, Simone Moro, Yvonne Chouinard, Riccardo Cassin, Lino Lacedelli, Eloise Barbieri, Maurice Herzog, Silvia Metzeltin, Cristina Castagna, and Angelika Rainer. Also featured have been the most famous Italian mountains and the fourteen peaks in the world that loom higher than eight thousand metres, the symbols and destinations of international Alpinism. Consultants to the program, who are also regular guests, include the meteorologist Luca Mercalli who, in addition to presenting weather forecasts proposes environmental topics, and the writer Roberto Mantovani, who presents books and fi lms about mountain areas. But the program also relies on the participation of “its” public: members of the television audience, in fact, are invited to send in their own videos and fi lms about excursions, trips, undertakings. Aft er selection by the producers, these are aired as the “closing theme” of the transmission. Th e result is a colorful mosaic that aims to recount not only what the Italian mountains and their inhabitants represent today, but also what they were in the past and what they might become.

Alberto Gedda