The mountains are symbols of magic and mystery, dreams and adventure, danger and adrenaline, a search for the new and the unexplored, elegance and lightness, conquest and defeat, the precarious balance between man and nature. They can be barriers or geographical and cultural connections, they can divide or unite, they can close horizons or open spaces and unexpected perspectives. The mountains that, as writes the environmental historian Mark Armiero, are not made for conformity. They become the home of the characters that are always outside of the box, in literature as in sports.

The festival offers a journey between literature and journalism in three stages to discover through some of its greatest performers the secrets of the mountains. Dino Buzzati once described the mountains both as a means of looking inside people, with all their ambitions and contradictions, and of considering the future. Recounting the mountains becomes a way to reflect on life and death, on our relationship with others and with nature and, of course, with ourselves.

Organised in association with Agenzia giornalistica di informazione turistica Ait Dolomiti