NewWorlds Festival: magical synchronicity

The world’s smallest mountain film festival, a member of theInternational Alliance for Mountain Film for the past few months, presents its 13th edition with a new look.

The festival will be held from June 25 to July 5 in Rittana and Roccasparvera.

For the first time, Base Camp will not be, as per tradition, in tiny Valloriate, but in nearby Rittana-also in the lower Stura Valley of Cuneo, but a handful of kilometers away.

For organizational reasons, it was not possible to stay in Valloriate, but it is since 2019 that the festival has been bringing events to neighboring towns. It is no coincidence that the Kosmoki Cultural Association, which materially organizes the festival, is moving this year in close collaboration with the Montagna Futura Cultural District, which brings together the municipalities of Valloriate, Rittana, Moiola, Roccasparvera and numerous associations that collaborate with the District

Silvia Bongiovanni, who shares the artistic direction of New Worlds with Fabio Gianotti, explains –

A participatory and widespread festival, therefore, which this year has as its motto:
The world is ours.

The Future Mountain Cultural District and the festival’s film program will be presented during a press conference on Tuesday, June 4 at 5:30 p.m. at Open Baladin in Cuneo.

Fabio Gianotti says:

Each year we chose a theme that was a direction of travel, an idea to pursue. We are living in unstable times as we have not for many years. We cannot ignore it and we cannot fail to become aware that if we are not the ones to find the lost stability, no one will find it for us. So never more than this year do we say that “the world is ours” and we must be the ones to care for it

The guests and films on the bill are all under the banner of this acknowledgement.

The program

On Thursday, June 27, the festival’s guest speaker will be Spanish mountaineer Silvia Vidal with a speech entitled “Magic Synchronicity.”

From 07/02 to 10/03/2020, after spending 33 days alone on the wall, Silvia Vidal completed a new big wall on the west face of Cerro Chileno Grande in Patagonia, Chile, one of the most difficult in the world.

Synchrony Magic(A3+/6a+, about 1200m ) is the first route on the west face of the mountain. Alone, totally isolated and without any communication: no radio, no phone, no GPS, no communication device of any kind for a month and a half, in the Chileno Valley.

After fixing the first 180 meters, I spent 33 days on the wall from February 7 until March 10 opening a route I called “Sincronia Màgica.”

The details are as follows: 1180 meters elevation gain, A3+/6a+, followed by 30 minutes to reach the westernmost needle, which turned out not to be the main summit.

The west wall is huge and vertical. There are about 330 meters of vertical terrain, with a lot of vegetation that prevented me from enjoying the climbing, especially since I didn’t even know how to get through this section.

I graded it MT (Bush “Matojo” Traction) because I used crampons and an ice axe to climb the vegetation-covered vertical cracks! The protections were very few and far between.

The rest of the route (the remaining 850 meters) offered slab and crack climbing. While the offwidth cracks and chimneys were generally clean, the slabs tended to be covered with moss that proved slippery when wet.

The wall west of the Cerro Chileno Grande is a wall complex and the progression proved to be difficult, not only because of the technical difficulties of the climb, but also for the number of rope maneuvers required to move across this varied terrain; roofs, traverses and pendulums–allto connect me to cracks and slabs.

Silvia Vidal

Silvia Vidal, 52, has many outstanding climbs behind her, on large, almost unknown walls.

In 2021 he received a Special Mention at the Piolets d’Or for his “outstanding contribution to soloclimbing on big walls over the past two decades.”

Nello extraordinary palmarès of Silvia Vidal are new routes on the mountains of theAsia as Sol Solet on theAmin Brakk in the Karakorum (1999, with Pep Masip and Miguel Puigdomenech, 32 days in wall, difficulty up to theA5), and Mai Blau (2004, with Eloi Callado, A3), on Neverseen Tower in theIndian Himalayas.

Among his solo exploits are Life is Lilac(2007, A4+, 21 days on the wall) on the elegant Shipton Spire in Karakorum.

Five years later, theCatalan mountaineer took 32 days on the wall to open Espiadimonis, a 1,500-meter route with difficulties up toA4 on Serrania Avalancha in Patagonia.