This year's International Competition presents 19 films chosen from 1,003 submissions from 79 countries, selected at a competition ratio of 52.8 to 1. This year, our cameras frame mountains and nature in every corner of the globe. From the Argentine pampas to the Zanskar Himalaya, from the forests of the DR Congo and Indonesia to the mountain pastures of North Macedonia, from the mines of the Andes to the valleys of Afghanistan and the slopes of Nanga Parbat — the nineteen films span every continent, showing that the story of mountains and humanity is not an isolated affair of any one place but the present of the entire planet.

Two currents run through this year's selection. The first is a record of the present, of lives long lived alongside nature. Villagers of the Zanskar Valley building artificial ice stupas against a changing climate, a Bolivian mining town bearing a weight of life as heavy as the silver it extracts, young shepherds pondering their future beside their flock, the workers who open and close each ski season, and the crews confronting vast wildfires that ignite on their own — the camera quietly bears witness to those who hold their ground and endure on trembling land.

The second is the sight of people facing their own limits once again. A kayaker returning to the waterfall of her dreams after her career was put on hold, a climber of sixty back on the legendary route of his prime twenty-five years on, riders who refuse to give up the joy of mountain biking despite physical disabilities, and an alpinist who has devoted twelve seasons to a single mountain: as they show us, a challenge is not a race for records but an attitude toward life — another form of growth, rising anew on the strength of experience earned over time.

Familiar faces have returned as well. Francesco Clerici, Ben Knight, Ben Sturgulewski, Daniel Kötter, Luis Arrieta Etxeberria, and Ignasi López Fàbregas — directors who have met UMFF audiences with previous works — are back in the Yeongnam Alps with new films of even greater depth.

In the end, the nineteen films converge on a single question: in the face of mountains and nature, how do we live, and how do we rise to the challenge? We invite you to the International Competition, where this year's challengers seek their own answers through these many stories, each in their own way.

― Jinna Lee, Programmer​