Trapped on Ice

Credits
Year: 2012
Directed by: Patricia Wagner, Cristina Karrer
Re-enactments: Marc Brasse
Running time: 50 mins

Produced by: Anita Wasser, C-Films AG
Co-production: Spiegel TV
Music: Georg Kochbeck
Cinematography: Michael Saxer, Bernd Zühlke
Editor: Patricia Wagner, Uli Weinstein
Casting: Corinna Glaus
Production design: Karin Diezenhammer, Sara Weingart
Costume design: Lili Krakenberger
Make-up department: Barbara Grundmann
Production management: Christa Müller
Second unit director: Nico Günther
Sound department: Balthasar Jucker, Jan Thomählen
Camera and electrical department: Marcel Burch, Till Schlatter
Editorial department: Konstantin Gutscher, Rebecca Siegfried
Broadcast by: SRF 1/3Sat/Spiegel TV/ ZDF

Awards
3rd prize New York Film Festival 2013

Festivals
Solothurner Filmtage, 2012

The allied forces have been frantically searching for the crash site for four days before it is finally discovered thanks to a radio signal in Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland. The news spreads like wildfire. American troops descend on the village and attempt to reach the glacier in their tanks. But the Swiss authorities do not let themselves be put off by the Americans. Annoyed by the US army’s erratic rescue strategy, they ban the allies from flying over the site and draw up their own rescue plans. With perfect accuracy and from a safe height they drop provisions at the site, and it does not take long to recruit volunteers for the perilous rescue mission. In extreme weather conditions, a group of local mountain guides with very basic equipment begin the ascent and after 15 hours the exhausted team finally reach the crash site. While the US tanks are stuck fast in the snow down in the village, two Swiss pilots risk it all: they manage to land two Fieseler Storch aircraft on skis on the glacier and safely evacuate the injured passengers. The Americans are surprised by the efficiency of the Swiss rescue mission and the world media enthusiastically report on the events. The unique endeavour is not only the first ever high mountain rescue from the air, it also marks the birth of the Swiss Air Rescue Rega. The film is the first comprehensive documentary to look back at the crash of the Dakota and the associated invasion of the Swiss mountains by the Americans. On one side was the small country of Switzerland which was trying to counteract a negative image after the Second World War and found itself suddenly making positive headlines internationally for a few days as a nation of mountain heroes. On the other side was the United States, one of the victors of the war, whose GIs turned the heads of Swiss women with their chewing gum, nylon stockings and confident demeanour when they came to Switzerland on holidays, but became subdued when they failed to rescue their generals and their wives.

© C-Films AG