ISLAMABAD: The Embassy of Italy on Monday hosted the opening of ‘The Best of Trento Mountain Film Festival’ which included the screening of two short films and a cultural event.

The festival commemorates the United Nations’ International Mountain Day which provides a reason to emphasise how climate, deprivation and migration are impacting mountains. The day is globally celebrated to ensure that viable mountain enhancement is incorporated into the 2030 agenda and in the enactment of the Paris Agreement.

The event was inaugurated by Italian Ambassador Stefano Pontecorvo who deliberated on the 100 years of continuous and arduous work in the Karakoram by the government and people of Italy.

He said: “There are two primary interests we have in Pakistan, archaeology and mountaineering. We are doing very well with Pakistan in the cultural aspect – to reopen our presence and go back to the older times of association. And the best way towards it is to pursue what we have in common – mountains.”

Ashraf Aman, the first Pakistani to summit K2, was also amongst the guests at the event.

He retraced his journey of climbing K2 while acknowledging the enduring support and efforts of those who preceded him. He specifically extolled Agostino Da Polenza, EvK2CNR president, and the Italians who have invested their time and support to this region.

Uzma Yousaf, the first woman to have conquered a 7,027 metre high Spantik peak, also spoke at the event encouraging women to join mountaineering as a sport.

The event then played a short film The History of K2 that highlighted the major incidents relating to the highlands from 1902–1954. According to the film, Oscar Eckenstein attempted to summit K2 as early as 1902 but the expedition ended in bitterness and never made past the base camp.

The movie then proceeded to 1954 when the Italians, Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli, made the first ascent of K2. They left two group members, Walter Bonatti and Pakistani porter Mahdi, sleeping outside on a ledge at 8,000m after transporting up their vital oxygen supplies. Then in 1986, 13 climbers died in seven separate incidents; an avalanche, falls, crevasses, rockfall and sheer exhaustion.

The movie then showed K2 climbed by Pakistani mountaineers in collaboration with the Italians who through the years had also provided technical and navigational help to local and international mountaineers.

The film portrayed that though K2’s history has been characterised by tragedy as a result of poor decision making, either by climbers who were too inexperienced to be tackling a mountain as difficult as K2, or who underestimated the task they were undertaking, the Italians and Pakistanis, in collaboration, have provided facilities to ease the difficulties faced while climbing the mountain.

The event concluded with the screening of Christophe Dumarest’s Inside which was a French movie about an individual who does not recognise himself in the life proposition that the present society makes him.

He explores through his vision and practice of mountain and mountaineering in another way to get back to basics.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2017