This year marks the 10th anniversary edition of the Alpine Convention's Reading Mountains Festival, a celebration of literary and cultural diversity held to honour International Mountain Day on and around 11 December. Our 2024 Festival features an inspiring lineup of activities, readings, film screenings, and discussions that bring communities together to appreciate and celebrate the rich cultural heritage of the Alps. You can find the full overview of events here.
We look forward to celebrating this anniversary with more than 110 events being organised across the Alps and beyond! We warmly invite everyone to join one of these events and pay tribute to the Alpine region's cultural differences and similarities while connecting mountains and culture.
Events of the Alpine Conventions Infopoints
The Villach Infopoint invites you to a reading of “Kärnten liegt am Meer“ (Carinthia lies by the sea), which tells a story of Carinthia, the Alps-Adriatic, and its future as a region of peace (Alps-Adriatic Peace Manifesto). Accordingly, what connects the Alps and the Adriatic is not just the mountains and the paths that cross them, not just the traditional multilingualism of their inhabitants, but also a spirit of utopia, which turns the idea of borders into an opportunity for moving beyond/transcending, both in thought and action.
For the second time, the Ötscher-Tormäuer Infopoint will organise a colourful event at the winter farmers' market at their Nature Park centre. Mountain stories will be read, and mini theatres created around them – with the audience able to join in. Moreover, a second-hand library, a crafts station for children to send Christmas wish lists, and a choir for musical accompaniment will complete the programme.
In Slovenia, the new Koroška Infopoint dedicates its first Reading Mountains event to the new protected area, the Regional Park Pohorje Hills. Celebrating the “Pohorje Hill Days”, the Infopoint will host an array of events including a roundtable discussion, two film screenings, and a presentation on Pohorje and Kozjak.
In Mojstrana, the main Reading Mountains event in December is a reading and talk with mountaineer and writer Tadeje Golob and will be accompanied by accordionist Marek Brdnik. The Infopoint also offers reading circles throughout the year in which nine books on different mountaineering topics were discussed.
A literary evening at the Tolmin Infopoint will feature Iztok Tomazin and Tomo Virk talking about climbing as a duo and the social connection evolving from this experience. Furthermore, the Infopoint is also organising an event as part of the Bovec outdoor film festival (BOFF).
In Italy, the Domodossola Infopoint has organised its seventh Reading Mountains Infopoint Award on the topic “Mountain solutions for a sustainable future” for middle and secondary school students. The winners will be awarded and all the submissions to the award will be shared at a school conference in 2025.
The Grand Paradis National Park Infopoint in Cogne is hosting a “Reading Mountains Corner”, intended especially for pupils of the local primary school. The aim is to raise awareness of Alpine literature and to promote knowledge of the Gran Paradiso National Park and its biodiversity, as well as making the children aware of the Alpine Convention and its goals.
Events in Innsbruck and Bolzano/Bozen
This anniversary edition would not be the same without many of our long-term partners organising their literary and cultural events with passion and creativity.
The 10th edition of Reading Mountains was opened on 26 November already in Innsbruck at the Tyrolia bookshop, a Festival partner since the very beginning. The Wagnersche bookshop is also organising a reading of a book (“Selbe Stadt, anderer Planet” – Same city, different planet) combining two controversial topics: mass tourism and depopulation in the Alps.
Three writers with different narrative approaches and perspectives will be speaking in Bolzano/Bozen, where the Permanent Secretariat’s operational branch office is located. On the afternoon of 11 December, the event ‘Raccontare la Montagna’ (‘Narrating Mountains’) will be held at the Nuova Libreria Cappelli, with the participation of Katia Tenti, Luca Saltini and Paolo Martini through their stories, tales, and reflections, the audience will explore how mountain stories can be told from different angles, finding a common thread that unites, inspires, but above all acknowledges the large changes underway in these unique environments.
Other events
In Berlin, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, the Swiss Embassy in Berlin, and the Swiss Federal Office for Spatial Development (ARE) are jointly organising an event “Climate change and glacier retreat”. Photos from different periods in the Alps– from the pioneering days of Alpine tourism to current times of global warming – will be shown to highlight the changes happening in the region. CIPRA International in Liechtenstein invites you to its event dedicated to “Gipfelstürmerinnen” (summiteers) where three female mountaineers reflect on happiness at the summit and other adventures. The Slovenian Triglav National Park, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2024, is organising a reading of “Transversal” with renowned Slovenian author Jakob Kenda in Bovec.
We are also happy to welcome many new partners for the tenth edition of the Festival such as the Alpinium, a centre for nature experiences, which will organise its first MountainMic Poetry Slam in Oberstdorf, Germany. Wipptalherz, a Tyrolean cultural centre, is planning an evening dedicated to the theme “Moving Mountains” in Matrei am Brenner. To reflect on light pollution, GeoExplora, an Italian geography organisation, will offer a walk at dusk with readings for adults and children on the theme of light and darkness.
This diverse selection of events presented here are just part of the full programme of this year’s Reading Mountains Festival. Many events in 2024 are being organised in cooperation with protected areas, the Alpine Associations from Italy, South Tyrol, Slovenia, and Switzerland as well as various members of the Alpine Town of the Year Association.