We warmly invite you to the screening of the Austrian documentary “The Melting” by Nikolaus Geyrhalter, selected for the feature documentary competition of the Carpathian Mountain International Film Festival (CMIFF).

Filmed between 2021 and 2025, Melt becomes an archive of the future — a portrait of a world changing as its snow and ice disappear. In Japan, bulldozers cut through 16-metre walls of snow; in France, artificial snow keeps a ski resort operating; in Switzerland, glaciers are covered to preserve them for another season. The journey also takes us to Iceland, Canada, Austria and a research station in Antarctica.

Yet Geyrhalter focuses not on catastrophe itself, but on the people who live alongside snow and ice, depend on them and witness their gradual disappearance. Through careful observation, the film explores how climate change is already transforming landscapes, livelihoods and ways of life.

 Founded in 2020, the Carpathian Mountain International Film Festival (CMIFF) is dedicated to mountains, ecology and tourism. It brings together audiences and film professionals around nature conservation and sustainable tourism, contributes to the development of film culture in western Ukraine and draws attention to Zakarpattia as a unique natural and cultural region.

For the Austrian Cooperation Office in Lviv, supporting the presentation of contemporary Austrian cinema in Ukraine and initiatives that foster Austrian-Ukrainian cultural dialogue is particularly important. This screening also opens a space to reflect on a challenge shared by our countries and the entire world: climate change and the future of mountain ecosystems.