Mario Fantin

Mario Fantin (Bologna, 9 May 1921 – Bologna, 23 July 1980) was an Italian mountaineer and film director. Born to Friulian parents, he graduated in accounting in 1940. In February 1941 he went into military service and took part in the fighting of the Second World War in Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro with the rank of second lieutenant. He returned to Italy at the end of 1944, severely affected by the immense tragedy of the "Division of Venice". At the end of 1946 he enrolled in the Bologna section of the Italian Alpine Club and, after taking a mountaineering course, he began to frequent the Alps, documenting his ascents with his camera: this would be the beginning of a long adventure as a mountaineer, photographer and filmmaker. In the late 1940s he began his career as a nature documentary filmmaker. In 1954 he took part in the Italian expedition to conquer K2, led by Ardito Desio, as a photographer and director of photography to produce photographic and cinematographic documentation of the undertaking. He reached an altitude of about 6,000 metres. From the documentation collected with Achille Compagnoni, the director Marcello Baldi made the film Italia K2. During the expedition he also wrote the diary “K2 Sogno vivere”, published about three years later. After returning from this undertaking, he devoted himself full-time to the mountains and ethnography: he took part in 33 extra-European expeditions, including 20 mountaineering expeditions, including in the Andes, the Sah…