Dear friends,

One year has passed and we are meeting up again in Poprad at our, and your, festival in this second week of October. We could not meet any way but virtually, meaning online, due to the pandemic last year. Hopefully we will be more lucky this year to be able to meet live in the cinema theatres. Although, at the time of writing this editorial, we have no idea of the form the festival will finally take, we can assure you that we have prepared it with enthusiasm and hope that you will be able to enjoy it, whether from your homes or in the cinema theatres.

We have selected the best of Slovak and foreign films. Your palms will surely be sweating while watching some of them; your breath will stop while watching others. Beautiful mountain scenery, life in mountain villages, incredible sport and climbing achievements, extreme downhill rides from summits and lots of other attractive themes are ready for you thanks to these inventive filmmakers.

We will commemorate an important anniversary, too. Last July marked 50 years since the first Slovaks mountaineers stood on the top of an 8000-metre peak. Ivan Fiala and Michal Orolin were the first Eastern Bloc mountaineers to climb the formidable “Killer Mountain” Nanga Parbat. Although it has been some time already, the members of the legendary expedition who are among us can still talk about that ascent with a lot of emotions and can encourage the young to pursue their dreams. We hope to afford you at least some snatches of the events through which our climbers started to write the history of the golden era of the Czechoslovak Himalayan mountaineering half a century ago.

We do not know in advance what the development of the pandemic will be like at the time of the festival, nor do we know the impact on the festival itself. What we are sure of is that there will be some measures and restrictions to respect. We believe that a responsible approach will get us closer to the possibility of meeting live in all the cinema theatres. The festival is a film celebration and we definitely would love to celebrate it with you once a year.