berg.link, 15.11.2021
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WILD - JÄGER UND SAMMLER gewinnt am Natur Vision Film Festival in Ludwigsburg den Kamerapreis.
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Synopsis
«IN THE WILD – Hunters and Gatherers» turns a critical eye to one of the world’s oldest cultural practices and paints an authentic picture of the essence of hunting from different perspectives. The filmmaker, hunter and forest engineer Mario Theus challenges viewers with controversial questions on our ambivalent relationship with wild, domestic and farm animals, pulling no punches as he documents the contradictions that underlie our meat consumption.
Cast
Mario Theus | Director
For a long time, science wanted to sell us the transition to agriculture as a great leap for mankind and told us a story of progress and intelligence.
However, this is an old wives' tale.
The hunter-gatherers ate a healthier diet, worked less, engaged in more interesting activities and suffered less from hunger and disease. (...) On average, the farmers worked more than the hunter-gatherers and got a poorer diet in return. The agricultural revolution was the greatest fraud in history.
With these words, Yuval Noah Hariri speaks from my soul in his book «A Brief History of Mankind».
Pirmina Caminada
«Nature is a wonderful teacher. Its rhythms, cycles and dynamics are fascinating and inspiring at the same time. Great richness is revealed to those who encounter it with open senses.»
For the Rhaetian woman, hunting is an original and natural way of self-sufficiency: killing to obtain ecological and high-quality food. As the first female gamekeeper in the canton of Grisons, she has turned her passion into a profession. She monitors the protected areas of wild animals from human disturbance. During the hunting season, Pirmina mainly monitors the hunt and intervenes when laws are violated. She regularly takes one of her two daughters, Angela, into the mountains and passes on the knowledge of our ancestors.
Andreas Käslin
«In my opinion, you can learn to hunt, but the real hunter, he's just got it.»
As a mountain farmer and hunter, Andreas Käslin is constantly reminded of the cycle of becoming and passing. Also humans are subjected to this eternal cycle. In his opinion, it is natural to kill in order to live.
He learned the cultural craft of hunting from his father and lives now with his family on a farm in Canton of Nidwalden.
Urs Biffiger
«The hunter has his prey, I have my take. The big difference is: the hunter never sees his animal in the wild again. But I am lucky and see the same animal maybe seven or eight times in the wild.»
The former poacher has traded in his rifle for a camera. With his camera, the Valais filmer observes wild animals at close range. Sometimes he gets almost too close to the deer to be able to shoot. By the movement of the camera, you can feel that Urs anticipates every breath, every movement of the deer. Images you have to see to believe: a deer fight in the dense forest, 15 metres in front of the camera, the camera moving to the rhythm of the deer. Urs waited about eight years for this moment. Other nature filmmakers wait a lifetime for such moments.
Review
Die Mittelländische Zeitung, 27. Oktober 2021
Darum sage ich nicht wie Herbert Grönemeyer "Kinder an die Macht!" - ich sage: "Kinder auf die Jagd!".
Nathalie Benelli, Walliser Bote
«Ich kann nicht beschreiben, wie es ist, einen Hirsch ganz aus der Nähe zu beobachten. So etwas kannst du mit keinem Geld der Welt kaufen.»
«Ich liefere keine Rechtfertigungen zur Jagd. Wer nach dem Film nach Hause geht und findet, Jäger seien komische Menschen, der kann das tun. Aber vielleicht beginne doch der eine oder die andere, sich Gedanken über unsere Beziehung zu Haus- und Wildtieren zu machen.»
Bündner Woche, 28.07.2021
"Gute Jäger und Jägerinnen pflegen einen bewussten und respektvollen Umgang mit der Natur."
Tom Von Arx, OUTNOW
Zwischen vielen Stimmungsbildern macht Mario Theus die Widersprüchlichkeiten des Jagdwesens spürbar und erkennbar - zumindest für die, deren Blick nicht durch Faszination für die Jagd verklärt ist.
LINK zum ganzen Review.
Jon Duschletta, Engadiner Post
"Es kommt keiner heil aus diesem Film raus. Es erwischt jeden und jede in seinem Wesen, Mensch zu sein und vielleicht zu bemerken, dass man sich zuerst selber kennenlernen muss, bevor man über andere urteilen kann oder darüber was richtig und was falsch ist."
Far more than naked hunting pride
Mario Theus explores hunting from a refreshingly unusual perspective in "Wild - Jäger und Sammler". His film is part of a series of recent Swiss films that explore the question of the relationship between man and nature.
Hunters, children already learn in Walt Disney's "Bambi" (David Hand, 1942), are men with guns who hunt down animals. And the huntsman's pride is revealed at first glance in any well-stocked hunter's parlour. But hunting is not a martial male sport, but a primitive way of obtaining food and one of the oldest cultural techniques in the world. Hunting requires local knowledge and knowledge of flora and fauna, and apart from that, physical control and efficiency. Hunting as such is an intense moment of emotional experience.
At least that is how Mario Theus puts it in "Wild". Theus is a forester and filmmaker by profession and has accompanied his father on hunts since early childhood. In his first long documentary film, he traces these emotional sides of hunting based on his own experiences and in encounters with three protagonists. He accompanies his protagonists into the field. Lurks for hours with Urs Biffiger, who traded in his poacher's rifle for a film camera a few years ago, on the Tschuggistafel in the Valais. He accompanies Primina Caminada, Switzerland's first female gamekeeper, and her daughter Angela on a tour through the autumnal Greina. And he travels with Andreas Käslin, a mountain farmer from Nidwalden, through the stubby area around Dossenalp. They all know the feverish tension before a shot. But they also know the animals and have a kind of personal relationship with them, especially Biffiger, who follows individual stags for years and who succeeds in Theu's film in what some people dream of all their lives: capturing a stag fight from a few metres away.
Made away from touristically developed areas, "Wild" surprises with sensational landscape and nature shots from the Swiss Alps, the soundtrack created by singer and sound artist Christian Zehnder together with Till Zehnder lends the film a sonically enchanting, atmospheric density. Made with a palpable reverence for animals and people - in one of the film's most haunting scenes, Käslin explains the meaning of the last bite to his five children on the way to take game - "Wild" is a careful and clever film. With its unusual approach for a hunting film, it fits in with a large number of recent Swiss films, such as "Der Bär in mir", "Die Rückkehr der Wölfe", "Being With Animals", "Becoming Animal", which explore the relationship between humans and animals/nature.
Irene Genhart, film journalist
Werden Jäger zur bedrohten Spezies?
Thomas Stephens von Swissinfo interviewte Mario Theus zum Film "WILD": LINK
Roger Wetli, Der Freiämter
"Die Frage ist nicht: Wieso jagst du? Sondern: Wieso jagst du nicht?"
Diana, chasse et nature - Interview avec Mario Theus, août 2021
"Pour connaître la chasse, il faut l’expérimenter. Il y a des choses qui doivent être vécues pour être comprise."
"Avec In the wild, j’ai cherché à offrir aux spectateurs un voyage de nonante minutes, qui leur permette de vivrel’expérience de la chasse."
Regionaljournal Graubünden, Radio SRF 1, 20. August 2021
«Der aufmerksame Zuschauer findet in diesem Film 1000 Gründe warum die Menschen jagen. Ich überlasse dem Zuschauer die Freiheit, diese Gründe im Film zu finden.»
Mario Theus
Downloads
Presse & Medien
Credits
Crew
|
Director Assistant Director |
Mario Theus Stefan Vogel |
| Cinematographers |
Mario Theus Sam Gyger Urs Biffiger |
|
Sound Narration Picture Design |
Jacques Kieffer Gian Rupf Patrick Lindenmaier |
|
Editing Editing Trailer |
Stefan Kälin Marina Wernli |
| Music |
Christian Zehnder Till Zehnder |
|
Productionmanger Producer Prodution |
Sandra Gisler Martin Schilt Lucky Film GmbH |
| Distribution | MovieBiz Films |
Cast
| Pirmina Caminada | |
| Andreas Käslin | |
| Urs Biffiger | |
| Angela Nay | |
| Toni Theus | |
| Matteo Theus | |
| Maria Theus | |
| Markus Theus |
Supported by
Bundesamt für Kultur, Radiotelevisiun Svizra Rumantscha, Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen, 3sat, Kulturfonds Suissimage, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Kulturförderung Kanton Nidwalden, Kulturförderung Graubünden / SWISSLOS, Internationaler Rat zur Erhaltung des Wildes und der Jagd (CID), Carl Zeiss Sports Optik GmbH, Blaser Jagdwaffen GmbH
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