In “Aiming High – A Race Against the Limits,” directors Flavio Gerber and Alun Meyerhans chronicle the ambitious effort to establish a new downhill classic at the base of the Matterhorn. The documentary world premieres at the Zurich Film Festival . Touted as the world’s first transnational and highest-altitude ski race, the Matterhorn Cervino Speed Opening was set to debut in 2022, with racers speeding down the Gran Becca course from the Matterhorn glacier in Zermatt across the border to the finish line in Cervinia, Italy.
The film follows organizers and athletes and the challenges they face over the course of two years as they try to establish the new event. Gerber and Meyerhans initially planned to make a documentary offering a big-picture look at the ski scene and the new race offered an ideal entry point. “It was interesting to do a movie about something new, about a vision, about some something big,” says Gerber.
“Of course we wanted to have the spectacle of the ski races – and it was a speed race. And we wanted to have all this with the big view of the mountain. But it turned out differently.
It turned differently each day we were there.” First organized in the fall of 2022, it was quickly canceled due to insufficient snow. The following year, facing fast-changing weather conditions, heavy snowfall and strong winds, it was again canceled, dashing the hopes of organizers, sponsors, fans and athletes, among them Swiss ski champions Marco Odermatt and Lar.
