The new edition of Cinema in Verticale, the festival dedicated to cinema, culture, and mountain sports, opens on Friday, February 6th in Condove. The festival, founded in 1999 as a preview of the Valsusa Filmfest, is an evening of significant environmental and cultural significance, dedicated to the Vallone delle Cime Bianche, a pristine area in the upper Ayas Valley in the Aosta Valley, part of the "Glacial Environments of the Monte Rosa Group" Special Protection Area and the European Natura 2000 Network.
The founding members of the Insieme per Cime Bianche Committee present "Il vallone delle Cime Bianche," a project to protect and enhance the natural and cultural landscape. The project showcases the uniqueness of this area, which has survived to this day in extraordinary conditions despite human pressure, but is now threatened by cable car projects linking ski areas. This project, if implemented, would irreversibly compromise an ecosystem of exceptional environmental, geological, and landscape value.
Through images, audiovisual contributions, and firsthand accounts, the evening aims to offer the public an in-depth and informed look at a symbolic site of contemporary Alpine conservation, at the center of a long and complex battle waged by associations, citizens, photographers, and environmental groups, including at the institutional and international levels.
Based on materials from the conservation photography project "The Last Wild Valley. In Defense of the Cime Bianche," Gigi Giuliano will engage with Annamaria Gremmo, Francesco Sisti, and Marco Soggetto, authors of a dissemination and awareness-raising project launched in 2017 and based on the use of photography as a visual advocacy tool, that is, to inform and raise public awareness on environmental protection issues. Over the years, this project has spawned publications, public evenings, local events, an international petition with over 21,000 signatures, and widespread engagement, helping to bring the Vallone delle Cime Bianche to the forefront of the debate on Alpine conservation.
