Ski Heil: The Two Planks That Mean the World (2009)

Recreational sport, competitive sport, and tourist attraction: today skiing is a matter of course, but it wasn't always this way: 80 years ago, four Austrian mountain boys raced down the snow-capped mountains on self-made skis, organized the first competitive races, and became the co-founders of a mass movement. Ski Heil is a deeply personal journey through the lives of my father, Richard Rossmann, and his skiing colleagues Karl Koller, Eberhard Kneisl and Guzzi Lantschner. It traces not only their pioneering achievements, but a shared love for skiing and the mountains which stayed with them over a lifetime -sometimes opening up glittering opportunities, sometimes providing a framework to overcome personal and political dilemmas. From early on, the fate of all four men was closely linked to Austrian and German history. One was the private ski instructor of Albert Speer; one was a student of the Reichs Sport Academy in Berlin; one was a cameraman for Leni Riefenstahl; three of them were members of the Olympic Ski Racing Team in 1936. Ski Heil is a film about passion and repression, about men who grew up in different times, and about values that can't be easily categorized in today's world.