Une Belle Trace

Seventy-five years after Brad Washburn, one of the greatest aerial mountain photographers of all time, first shot Alaska’s Denali Mountain from the open door of an airplane, climbing buddies Renan Ozturk, Freddie Wilkinson, and Zack Smith look at some of his mountain photographs and have this crazy idea. Rather than go up, their dream is to go sideways across the range’s most foreboding peaks, the Moose’s Tooth massif. It’s a fresh new way to explore the same landscape Washburn first discovered. As the group endures rough conditions, disintegrating ropes, and constant rockfall, their desire to be the first to complete the audacious line grows into an obsession. But friendships begin to fray when Renan suffers a near fatal brain injury, forcing all three partners to decide what’s most important to them.

Adventure in Bleau is a documentary about bouldering that takes place in Fontainebleau. Directed by Jean-Paul Janssen in 1980 and produced by Antenne 2, it is part of the series "Les Carnets de l'Aventure" and broadcast on the same television channel. It features different generations of the finest free climbing artists of the time: Patrick Edlinger, Catherine Destivelle, Lucien Bérardini, Jean Pierre Bouvier, and Bertrand Roche 'Zébulon'.

TSR documentary on the 1979 expedition to Algeria in the Atakor massif (Hoggar desert), organized by Geneva mountaineer Michel Vaucher and Jean-Blaise Fellay. The climbers make a dozen ascents including the famous summit of Adaouda (which means "finger" in Tamasheq, the Tuareg dialect), by several routes. Then a new route on the peaks of the southern Tezoulegs. They discover the volcanic geological characteristics of the Atakor massif and meet the nomadic inhabitants of the region, the Tuaregs, who are increasingly settling in the town of Tamanrasset.

La Grande Cordée

The best films of the European Outdoor Film Tour 11/12.

La Lumière du Rocher

Blind climber Erik Weihenmayer and his team's highly successful ascent of Mount Everest along with four other remarkable milestones on the mountain. Time magazine called this the most successful Everest expedition of all time.

In February 1966, Pierre Mazeaud and Lucien Berardini attempted a difficult first ascent to one of the summits of Garet El Djenoun, in the Hoggar massif, a mountain range located west of the Sahara, in the south of Algeria. The mountain has been preserved intact since Roger Frison-Roche's expedition in 1935. The documentary, superbly filmed by René Vernadet, won the Grand Prix at the Trento Film Festival in 1966.

27-year-old German alpinist Jost Kobusch wants to climb Everest, alone, without oxygen and in Winter, when the roof of the world is deserted.

Les Etoiles de Midi is an engaging docudrama about some of the more spectacular exploits of French mountain climbers over the last several decades. In one re-enacted story, there is a wartime escape through the mountains, and in another, a daring rescue of a pair of climbers who had been missing. The actors themselves are adept at the sport of climbing, and they give the scenes an immediacy and real daring that brings the stories alive. A combination of their acrobatics and skill and the outstanding episodes in the history of French climbing creates a winning 78 minutes.

In 1954, a German-Austrian expedition led by Mathias Rebitsch set off for the difficult-to-access Karakoram Mountains, geographically north of the Himalayas. They come across the Hunza, a people who live in the valley of the same name and believe they are descended from the soldiers of Alexander the Great. The documentary conveys impressions of the poor life of the Hunza people, the harvest, a court hearing, festivals and the children's everyday school life. Finally, the expedition sets off again and sets up its main camp on the moraine ridge of a glacier, where they measure the glacier and the earth's magnetic field. Finally, some men from the research community set off for a sub-peak of Batura.

In 1973, 6 guides from the National Ski and Mountaineering School (ENSA), including Charles Daubas and Walter Cecchinel, left by truck from Chamonix to Tamanrasset in the desert in Algeria with the aim of climbing some peaks of the Atakor massif including Adaouda and Tizouyag where they do the first of "La Voie de l'ENSA".

The true story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates' disastrous and nearly-fatal mountain climb of 6,344m Siula Grande in the Cordillera Huayhuash in the Peruvian Andes in 1985.

For decades, an elite handful of climbers have competed for the coveted speed record on the 3,000-foot Nose of El Capitan, risking big falls to shave mere seconds off the fastest time. When a record held by superstar Alex Honnold is broken by little-known climbers Brad Gobright and Jim Reynolds, Honnold drafts fellow climbing legend Tommy Caldwell to establish a new mark that will stand the test of time. Honnold pushes for perfection while Caldwell, a family man, wrestles with the risk amid a series of accidents on the wall that lay bare the consequences of any mistake.

Brian Blessed plays George Mallory in this intrepid recreation of his ill fated 1924 climb to Everest. Meeting Sir Chris Bonington, Rheinhold Messnerhe learns of the pitfalls that await him before setting off for his epic struggle with the mountain. Against all odds he reaches 26000 feet on the North face of Everest, and is a changed man

The first ascent of the Matterhorn was made on July 14, 1865 by Edward Whymper, Francis Douglas, Charles Hudson, Douglas Hadow, Michel Croz and two guides from Zermatt, Peter Taugwalder father and son. Douglas, Hudson, Hadow and Croz are killed on the descent after Hadow slips and drags the other three men down the north face. Whymper and the two Taugwalders, who survive, are later accused of having cut the rope that connected them to the rest of the group so as not to be dragged into the fall, but the ensuing investigation finds no evidence of their guilt and they are acquitted. The Matterhorn is the last great peak in the Alps to be conquered and its ascent marks the end of the golden age of mountaineering. One hundred and fifty years later, a team undertakes the same expedition in order to unravel the mystery.

Kick off the season with Warren Miller’s Timeless, presented by Volkswagen, as we celebrate 70 years of ski cinematography and travel with top athletes across the globe to renowned mountain locations. Featuring ski legends like Glen Plake, alongside newcomers Caite Zeliff, Jaelin Kauf, and Baker Boyd. Road-trip with rippers from Arlberg to the Matterhorn, be immersed in the hometown hill of Eldora and discover a different side of Jackson Hole, plus much more.

Rotpunkt documents the advent, the agony and the art of the redpoint through Alex Megos’s efforts to redefine the boundaries of the form. The film traces the redpoint—which transformed rock climbing from an engineering problem into a brilliant test of mental and physical strength—from its origins with a ragtag bunch of tights-wearing revolutionaries in rural Bavaria, to its golden era with Wolfgang Güllich, to its new ideal in the German phenom Megos as he battles to unlock new levels of human potential.

The American mountaineer Gary Hemming marked the era of the 1960s. The story of this "exceptional" character is intimately linked to that of the rescue of the two German mountaineers on the west face of the Drus, in 1966, a rescue which he had took the initiative. While the official emergency services of the EHM try to reach them from above, a pirate rope made up of Gary Hemming, René Desmaison, Lothar Mauch, Gil Bodin, Mike Brurke, François Guillot, the filmmaker Gérard Bauer organizes to join them from below and succeeded after a fierce struggle the rescue. The press seizes the event and elevates Gary Hemming to the rank of national hero. All the newspapers feature this big guy with a cool attitude, mismatched clothes, jovial smile and long blond hair on the front page. From then on, he was nicknamed: "the beatnik of the peaks".

At the peak of her career as a rock climber, Catherine Destivelle goes to the United States to get away from the competitions and to recharge batteries. There, Destivelle travels by car through Utah and Wyoming to make spectacular free solo ascents in Indian Creek, where she soloes 'Supercrack' (5.10d), in Dead Horse Point State Park, and on the iconic Devil's Tower, where she climbs unroped the second half of the classic 130-foot route 'El Matador' (5.10d).