MUFF X - The Tenth Melbourne Underground Film Festival

And Arnold Fanck: The Fascist aesthetic of Mountain Climbing movies This year MUFF takes a look at Arnold Fanck’s epic German mountain movies of the 20s and 30s, all starring Leni Riefenstahl, his beautiful and ultimately infamous leading lady. Riefenstahl left her acting career behind to become a personal friend of Hitler, and a legendary filmmaker of Nazi propaganda films such as Triumph of the Will. (MUFF anticipated a revival of Riefenstahl’s career following Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, which references Riefenstahl at every opportunity!) Riefenstahl and Fanck’s early films are epics in every sense, operatically depicting both the horror and the beauty of nature. To see them restored and on the big screen is a rare privilege that MUFF is proud to present.

	S.O.S. Iceberg dir. Arnold Fanck / GER / 1933 9PM / Mon 24 Aug / Noise Bar An Arctic expedition with high expectations of tracking a missing explorer sets out into the frozen wilderness. It is not long before disaster strikes, however, and the awe-inspiring landscape reveals its icy menace. The party is separated but still continues onward in search of the missing Dr Lorenz, crossing dangerous terrain and facing many unknown terrors along the way. When Dr Lorenz’s wife (Leni Rienfenstahl) hears of their trouble, she comes to the rescue via seaplane… but will her reconciliation with her lost husband be snuffed out forever by the perilous Arctic? Shot spectacularly on location in Greenland, S.O.S. Iceberg features spectacular flying by aviation legend Ernst Udet, who plays himself.

	The White Hell of Pitz Palu dir. Arnold Fanck / GER / 1929 / Silent 7PM / Tue 25 Aug / Glitch A young married couple naively venture through the snow, ignoring the implicit threats posed by the landscape. When the husband Krafft (Gustav Diessl) arrogantly laughs in the face of the mountain Pitz Palu, nature responds by burying his young wife in an avalanche. Some time Krafft is now traumatized, wandering the peaks of Pitz Palu alone in an attempt to recover his wife’s corpse. A new married couple (Leni Riefenstahl and Ernst Peterson) learn of Diessl’s troubled past, and join his cause. But when the three of them become stranded without supplies or shelter from the white hell of Pitz Palu, will they escape or will terrible history repeat itself for Krafft? In equal measures a celebration of the beauty and wonder of the mountain landscape, and the terror and wrath which will be incurred by the wild if humanity does not respect it.

	Storm over Mont Blanc dir. Arnold Fanck / GER / 1930 / Silent 9PM / Tue 25 Aug / Glitch In an isolated outpost atop the fearsome Mont Blanc, a lone Observatory worker named Hannes (Sepp Rist) lives out his days with minimal contact to the outside world. Two contacts he does make are to a stunningly beautiful astronomer (Leni Riefenstahl, naturally), and to an airplane pilot (aviation legend Ernst Udet), on whose visits he depends for supplies. But when Hannes’ observatory becomes under siege from a snowstorm and he finds himself trapped, hungry and freezing to death, will his two contacts battle through the elements to answer his call for help? Breath-taking yet eerie visual beauty overwhelm each shot of this magnificent mountain melodrama.