IDM Film Commission Südtirol

“La Valanga Azzurra” traces the unparalleled journey of the Italian national alpine skiing team of the 1970s, led by the legendary coach Mario Cotelli and spearheaded by champions like Gustav Thöni and Piero Gros. Through victories that rewrote the history of Italian sports, such as the conquest of five World Cups and numerous medals across the Olympics and World Championships, the documentary celebrates internal rivalries, contrasting personalities, and the sacrifices that made this team invincible. The previously unseen testimonies of the protagonists, intertwined with the narration of Giovanni Veronesi, who, in this context, reveals his past as an aspiring champion, bring to life the unique saga of a sporting cyclone, from its glorious beginnings to its inevitable decline.

As in a long suite, the cinematographic story of a country, Italy, in its current physiognomy, in a film made only of images and music. A home atlas of wonders that are sometimes misunderstood and of places known, loved and often lost. And of people cultured in their living in a highly stratified territory, between the still usable grandeur of the past and the apparent stasis of the present. A country marked by strong inequalities and nevertheless in continuous transformation in the difficult race towards sustainable development, problematically suspended between the old and the new and the increasingly difficult search for a balance to safeguard its éthos.