A Tribute to the Bear
Photo by C. Frapporti - © Archivio Servizio Foreste e fauna Provincia Autonoma di Trento
Ours is a tribute not to a director or an actor, but to the bear. This special event is the fi rst of a series that will enrich future editions of the Film Festival della Lessinia and bring to the fore the true protagonists of life in the mountains, and thus of the Festival itself. Not only montanari, or mountain residents, belong at centre stage: so do the animals who live at high elevations. The relationship between man and animals in the mountains is indissoluble. Th e struggle for survival, here as in every environment on earth, imposes the hunt and death, but also coexistence in which each species takes from the other to help itself. Th is is what occurs in Nature between one animal species and another, between men and other men, and between men and beasts. If going hunting has become, in almost all parts of the world, only a passion, or a debatable diversion that some stupidly call sport, Man has learned, over millions of years, to domesticate and breeds animals or, in the case of the bear, to study them and aid their repopulation, aft er having contributed to their nearextinction from their natural habitats. Th is delicate weaving of relationships amongst men, bears, and the mountains is explored and documented in the selection of fi lms featured in this special event. Two great maestros of international cinema are represented: Werner Herzog, with the documentary, Grizzly Man, and Jean-Jacques Annaud, with the feature fi lm, L’ours. In both cases, the bears are the featured actors. Josef Schwellensattl’s film, Orsi del Brenta, documents the bears of the Trentino and Veneto mountains. It was a “local” bear, who arrived in the Lessinia mountains from Slovenia in the spring of 2010, that inspired this special event. The Walt Disney animated film, Koda, Brother Bear, will delight children (and not only) as will the splendid cartoon series, Masha and the Bear, that took Russia by storm. Turn on the footlights. Th e bear is on the red carpet.
Alessandro Anderloni
by Werner Herzog
103’, USA, 2005
Timothy Treadwell spent 13 years of his life with the grizzly bears of Alaska, filming more than 100 hours of footage, until 2003 when one of the bears killed him.
(Brother Bear)
by Aaron Blaise, Robert Walker
85’, USA, 2003
Intent on vindicating the death of his brother, the young Inuit hunter Kenai kills a bear. The spirits, in turn, will transform him into a bear so that he can learn to love and respect nature.
(The Bear)
by Jean-Jacques Annaud
94’, France, USA, 1988
After losing his mother, a bear cub is raised by a great grizzly bear who teaches him how to get food and protect himself from the hunters.
(Masha and the Bear)
by D. Chervyatsov, O. Kuzovkov, O. Uzhinov, M. Nefedova
8’, Russia, 2010
From that day when they met by chance, Masha, the mischievous child, and Medved, the friendly bear, became inseparable friends, always ready for a new adventure.
(Bears in the Brenta)
by Josef Schwellensattl
45’, Germany, 2001
Fabio Osti follows the tracks of the brown bears that live on the slopes of the Brenta Dolomites and visits old Nene, the last bear hunter.