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KINO ON VIDEO RELEASES THREE MOUNTAIN FILMS STARRING GERMAN LEGEND LENI RIEFENSTAHL
Kino on Video is proud to bring for the first time on DVD three classic films starring the controversial and über talented German actress / director Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003). Directed or co-directed by Arnold Fanck (1889-1974), one of the creators of the successful and trend setting mountain films (das Bergfilm), THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU (1929), STORM OVER MONT BLANC (1930) and S.O.S. ICEBERG (1933) showcase a young Leni Riefenstahl at her most audacious moments – flying speedy planes, braving through unexplored parts of Greenland and climbing steep mountains. This new DVD series is a continuation of Kino on Video's long-term collaboration with Transit Films and the F.W. Murnau Stiftung, also marking the beginning of Kino’s affiliation with Alpha Film and Matthias Franck.
THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU (1929), STORM OVER MONT BLANC (1930) and S.O.S. ICEBERG (1933) will prebook on October 11, 2005, with a SRP of 29.95 for each title. All threee DVDs will be available to the general public on November 8, 2005.
Filmed at breathtaking locations under seemingly impossible conditions, Arnold Fanck's films are towering achievements in cinematic art. Leading photographic expeditions into the Alps and the Arctic, geologist-turned-filmmaker Fanck crafted larger-than-life melodramas that almost defy description, and certainly surpass anything that could be accomplished within the Hollywood system at the time.
A genre in itself, mountain films are not only defined by their striking visuals. They are also thematically bound, each being a harrowing, moral fable of strength, where valiant climbers, scientists and pilots risk their lives to pursue personal ideals and defend codes of honor. It was in THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1926), one of the first mountain films ever made, that dancer Leni Riefenstahl first achieved national prominence and came to be the quintessential alpine heroine.
Ordinary emotions swell to superhuman proportions when depicted against the awesome backdrop of glacial caves, towering mountains and crumbling icebergs. "Mountain climbing in Fanck's films was a visually irresistible metaphor for unlimited aspiration toward the high mystic goal, both beautiful and terrifying," wrote Susan Sontag in 1975, "which was later to become concrete in Führer worship."
Fanck's collaboration with Jewish filmmakers (such as Gregor Rabinovitch and Harry R. Sokal) and refusal to join the National Socialist Party made him an enemy of Joseph Goebbels, who ended his career as a filmmaker in Germany. Fanck later found work as a lumberjack, while Riefenstahl was chosen to be "Film Expert to the National Socialist Party," where she applied the neo-mythology and iconography of the Alpine übermensch to her highly-controversial Triumph of the Will (1934).
The mountain film would ultimately outlive the political movement that attempted to co-opt it. The heroic imagery endured well beyond the demise of the Third Reich to influence modern-day action films like CLIFFHANGER, VERTICAL LIMIT and TOUCHING THE VOID.
THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU
PLUS: THE IMMODERATION OF ME
Leni Riefenstahl’s final interview (2002)
 While enjoying a romantic stay in a remote mountain cabin, Maria and Hans (Leni Riefenstahl and Ernst Petersen) discover a logbook revealing the tragic tale of Dr. Johannes Krafft (Gustav Diessl). He lost his wife in an avalanche, and wanders the faces of Pitz Palu seeking to reclaim her frozen corpse. On the anniversary of her death, Krafft appears at the cabin, and Maria and Hans volunteer to join him on the next leg of his grim expedition. A series of unfortunate events leaves the three stranded on the dreaded north face without shelter or supplies. While Johannes’s loyal friend (Otto Spring) leads a spectacular torch-lit rescue effort through the icy glacial caves, Johannes, Maria and Hans face the realization that they cannot all survive, and someone is fated to perish in the White Hell of Pitz Palu.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- "The Immoderation in Me," (2002, 59 min.) an interview with Leni Riefenstahl by Sandra Maischberger
- Excerpt of the 1935 sound re-issue version
- Photo gallery / Germany 1929 B&W 133 min. / A Film by Arnold Fanck
STORM OVER MONT BLANC
 In a lonely outpost atop the treacherous Mont Blanc, an intrepid scientist lives with minimal connection to the world below. Through the telegraph, Hannes (Sepp Rist) communicates with a beautiful astronomer (Leni Riefenstahl), and is occasionally visited by an airplane pilot (Ernst Udet) upon whom he depends for supplies. In the midst of a ferocious snowstorm, Hannes loses his gloves and his weather station is battered by the elements. Suffering frostbite and unable to descend the mountain, he sends out a desperate S.O.S. in the hope that someone can brave the elements and rescue him from certain death.
Eerily romantic and overshadowed by the constant threat of doom, Storm Over Mont Blanc (Stürme über dem Montblanc) is a quintessential "Mountain Film" by Arnold Fanck, the genre's innovator and unparalleled master.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- "Cloud Phenomena of Maloja," a rare 1924 short by Arnold Fanck (10 min.)
- Optional English subtitles
- Photo gallery
S.O.S. ICEBERG
 In a departure from the trademark Alpine settings of Arnold Fanck's "mountain Films," S.O.S. Iceberg (S.O.S. Eisberg) takes place in the frigid waters off the coast of Greenland, where an explorer, Karl Lorenz (Gustav Diessl), is stranded on a steadily-eroding iceberg.
A rescue crew, led by the heroic Johannes Krafft (Sepp Rist), reaches Prof. Lorenz, but also becomes stranded, as does Mrs. Lorenz (Leni Riefenstahl), who crashes her plane while trying to land in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Surrounded by polar bears on their shrinking iceberg, the explorer and his would-be rescuers battle the elements, and each other, while waiting for a miracle.
S.O.S. Iceberg was filmed simultaneously in an English-language version,
which is presented in its entirety on this DVD. The differences between the two are not merely lingual. Each film is edited differently and includes prolonged sequences not seen in its transatlantic counterpart.
Germany 1933 B&W 86 Min. (German) / 76 Min. (English)
Directed by Arnold Fanck and Tay Garnett
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Alternate English language version
- Optional English subtitles
- Photo Gallery
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