Le Grand Paradis

Mountaineering documentary on the Nanga Parbat expedition, in India, in 1982. Led by mountaineer Pierre Mazeaud, this international expedition brings together eight French people, two Germans, an Iraqi, an Austrian and an Englishman including Michel Afanassieff, Michel Berrueux, Walter Cecchinel, Kurt Diemberger, Hans Engl, Shah Jehan, Karim Imamdad and others. On July 14, 1982, Hans Engl reached the summit after twelve hours of struggle.

The two brothers Jean and Pierre Ravier have opened almost all the "classic" (difficult) routes in climbing and mountaineering in the Pyrenees. Roped together at the waist using a few flat knots and little equipment, the two twin brothers achieved more than 200 firsts across the entire massif. A unique style and commitment, a state of mind made up of adventure, literature, inventiveness and friendship. Unclassifiable and outgoing, after 60 years of Pyrenees, their desire for the mountains is intact. When does a race start? How does the idea, the desire, come about? What sense does it make to only achieve firsts? And what is the role of the Pyrenees themselves in this reciprocal and endless game of attraction?

The story of the ascent of the Aiguille de la République by mountaineers Jacques Fromentin and Michel Bastien. The Aiguille de la République, in the Mont-Blanc massif, culminates at an altitude of 3,305 meters among the Aiguilles de Chamonix group of summits. In the Fontainebleau forest, children learn mountaineering techniques on the bouldering climbing site. In 1954, rock climbing was also practiced in the Chamonix valley. The Montenvers train crosses the viaduct taking tourists or athletes to the Mer de Glace viewpoint. The two climbers take an approach step and reach the Envers des Aiguilles refuge. They then climb this steep and smooth wall, progressing along the ridge. On the platform, a rope throw allows them to climb up and sit at the top to dominate the panorama. Then the return: abseiling from the summit block.

Portrait of Jean-Claude Droyer, a famous French climber and mountain guide. He is known for having participated in the rise of free climbing in France in the late 1970s. Trained at the climbing schools of Fontainebleau and Saussois, he distinguished himself in 1965 by solo climbing the Pentecôte route at Glandasse. He also made first ascents in the Verdon Gorges, winter ascents in the Prealps and the Mont Blanc massif, notably in 1971 the first solo ascent of the Directe Américaine on the west face of the Drus. The film was selected for the "Les Écrans Documentaires" festival in 2004.

The word Pyreneism was invented by the writer Henri Beraldi at the end of the 19th century. Its definition did not come down to a simple practice of mountaineering in the Pyrenees. To be recognized as a Pyrenean, it was necessary to “ascend, write and feel”. An approach to the mountains, according to him, necessarily accompanied by an artistic or intellectual activity. This documentary looks back at the Pyrenees who have left their mark on history, before interviewing contemporary mountain dwellers who, through their mountain practice, consider themselves, or not, Pyreneanists. What prompted Beraldi to coin this term? Does it result from a Pyrenean complex facing the Alps? Chauvinism or a demand for identity? And today, does this word still have meaning? Beyond the reflection on the subject, this film is a wonderful tribute to the massif.

Three years after the 1959 expedition, abandoned 350m from the summit, Lionel Terray leads a new assault on Jannu, one of the most demanding peaks in the Himalayas. At the base camp, equipment and food rations are prepared. The conditions are optimal and the ascent can begin. The camera follows the progress of the mountaineers and Sherpas as closely as possible, from one high-altitude camp to another: installing fixed ropes, progressing over crevasses, in the middle of frozen towers, vertically down immense ice falls or along the edge of sharp ridges. From 7000m, oxygen bottles become essential, as the difficulty of the climb prevents acclimatization. The expedition is a total success: the majority of its members reach the 7710m summit.

In 1975, Raymond Renaud, Yves Pollet-Villard, Maurice Gicquel, Maurice Cretton, Jean Coudray, Yvon Masino, Walter Cecchinel, all teacher guides at ENSA in Chamonix, with the help of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, set out to cross the 2 peaks of the highest mountain in India. After 43 hours in a truck, 10 days of slow and difficult approach walking, helped by goats for the portage due to lack of sherpas, the base camp is set up on the Nanda Devi glacier. Two groups share the two eastern and western slopes, 3 kilometers separate them: the goal being to meet between the two summits by the ridge. But on the big day, with the monsoon, bad weather arrives with wind and snow, we will have to give up. Like the French expedition of 1951 which lost two mountaineers, Roger Duplat and Gilbert Vigne, to whom Paul Gendre and Louis Dubosc pay tribute.

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".

Less than two years after his serious road accident, Eric Escoffier brought together the "Turbo" team (Frédéric Ancey, Michel Fauquet, Christine Janin and Stéphane Schaffter) with whom he will attempt to climb Everest without oxygen and without prior acclimatization in the Himalayas, the project being to complete the Paris-Everest-Paris loop in two weeks. It is also a medical experiment: the athletes spend a week at Mont Blanc, at the Vallot observatory between 4000 and 4800m, then a week in a hypobaric chamber in Grenoble. Doctors (Dr. Richalet, Herry and Bittel) perform tests throughout this training, which will learn about how the body acclimatizes to altitude and allow applications in the management of mountain-related illnesses . On September 2, 1989, they arrived at Everest base camp in China. They attempted the ascent via the North Col but could not carry out their project, prevented by bad weather.

Following in the footsteps of Frison Roche, 7 climbers explore the main Hoggar massifs in Algeria. Their main objective is the ascent of the Garet El Djenoun summit via the north ridge, a long climb symbolic of a certain difficulty and a significant commitment, due to its location in the desert. They also attempt the Diedre Agresti, a daring route from the 70s, opened in around ten days on artificial, and unequipped; it is a path that has never been repeated; the objective is to do it free and almost only on wedges, with difficulties up to 7b/c in a sometimes very delicate rock... Excerpts from the film shot in 1970 by Henri Agresti on this same route, allow us to compare the technical and material means of the time to those of today. They also discover the beauty of the Algerian desert, its silence, its rock paintings, the customs of the Tuaregs, etc... a fascinating journey.

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".

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.

Dirty Bird, The Derek Hersey Story

Behind every breakthrough in the progression of climbing, there's a true story of doubt and determination, perseverance in the face of failure. From boulders, to big walls, to competition podiums, the climbers at the top of the game share a commitment to do whatever it takes to achieve their vision.

Before tackling the ascent of urban buildings, Alain Robert was considered one of the best specialists in the "climbing" of cliffs. His passion nearly cost him his life in 1982, when a fall rendered him 66% disabled. At the time the doctors were convinced that he could no longer indulge in this passion. This does not prevent him, by dint of motivation and training, from climbing more than 170 buildings around the world to date, and from soloing technical routes at his maximum level, such as "La Nuit du Lézard". (8a+) in Buoux (France), where here is "L'Ange en Décomposition", in 1991, a mythical course in the Gorges du Verdon.

When Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa, joined Edmund Hillary as the first men to summit Mount Everest in 1953, it alerted the world to the indispensable role of the Sherpas on any Himalayan expeditions. By 1954 the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (HMI) was founded to marry the high-altitude strengths of the Sherpa with technical climbing skills. The HMI’s arduous training program has been developing mountaineers who play crucial roles in the success of Himalayan ascents. In 1967, HMI’s field director Nawang Gombu, a Sherpa and the first man to summit Everest twice, was charged with training women as well. In Sherpa: the Proving Grounds we follow a team of intrepid young women as they attack the grueling 28-day course.

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.

Avid for steep slopes, Marco Siffredi (1979-2002) obeys only one rule: not to fall. This gifted kid with hair sometimes blond peroxidized, green or blue clashed in his valley: Chamonix, mecca of mountaineering. His thing was to go up and down on a snowboard. . 90 minutes September 8, 2002, altitude 8848 meters, rare oxygen, his head already brushing the sky and his snowboard running, Marco Siffredi, 23, rushes from the summit of Everest in the Horbein corridor and its slopes at 50 degrees . A year earlier, he had already made the first descent of the mountain on a snowboard. But there remains another corridor… more direct. It's not a challenge, just a reason to be... However, that day, at the top of the roof of the world, his trace is lost...

Fred Beckey is the legendary American "Dirtbag" mountaineer whose name is spoken in hushed tones around campfires. This rebel climber's pioneering ascents and lifestyle form an iconic legacy that continues to inspire generations.