Ceux d'en haut

Joseph Vallot and his team of guides and porters climb Mont Blanc in 1906. Their ascent will take three days. They spent their nights at the Grands Mulets refuge and the Grand Plateau refuge. This is the very first successfully filmed ascent. Joseph Vallot (1854-1925), rich heir of Lodève in Occitania. He devotes part of his fortune to the observation of the Alps, sometimes opposing the scientific community. He built an observatory, still standing today.

Pas à Pas

Déneigeurs

Premières de cordée

An exceptional cinematographic document on Emilio Comici, shot in 1938 in Val Rosandra by a MGM operator. The documentary shows Comici with the mountain guide Gianni Macor, in all the stages of the rock climbing technique, in the way of an instructional film. Comici, nicknamed the 'Angel of the Dolomites', is considered as the most extraordinary climber of the period between the two World Wars. He made over 200 first ascents in the Dolomites during his short career. Comici perfected the Bavarian technique of mountain climbing, and began the era of 'sixth grade' climbing. It was Comici who originated the concept of climbing direttissima routes, following the path a drop of water would take down the mountain.

Record of the 1937 German Expedition to Nanga Parbat, led by Karl Wien. This was the third German expedition to the mountain, and the team followed the same route than the 1932 and 1934 expeditions, led by Willy Merkl by the Rakhiot Face. During the ascent, progress was made, but more slowly than previous expeditions due to heavy snowfalls. Sometime between 14 and 16 June, Wien was camped with other six German climbers and nine Sherpas at Camp IV, below Rakhiot Peak, when it was overwhelmed by a massive avalanche. All sixteen men were killed in what remains as the worst single disaster ever to occur on an eight thousand meter peak. Uli Luft, Carl Troll and Dawa Thondup, who stood at the base camp, were the only survivors of the German and Sherpa teams respectively. The film shows images of the members of the rescue team, led by Paul Bauer, that arrived one month later.

Record of the Japanese expedition to Nanda Kot (6861m) in Himalaya in 1936. The expedition was organized by the Mountaineering Club of the Rikkyo University and included Sakuta Takebushi, who had represented Japan at the Olympic Games. They were the first to climb the mountain and carried a camera to the summit. Six party members made it all the way to the top, using all-Japanese gear. The party, without previous Himalayan experience, had been training in in the Japanese Alps in winter conditions.

Three rock climbing ascents in Val Bregaglia, Italy by Karl Freimann and Philipp Wieland, who made the first ascent of Fiamma in 1936. The film starts with valley scenes. Wieland and Freimann climb up the waterfall to the old Albigna hut. Then they start the heavy climbing work on the extremely exposed needle of Fiamma in a repetition of their first ascent two years before. The team also climbs the needle of Ago di Sciora and Monte Sissone. A film by Werner Stauffacher and Swiss mountain photographer Andreas Pedrett.

The film is presented as a climbing film from Tirol's mountain world based on an idea by Kurt Maix, and it's a touristical film of the series 'Bilder aus Österreich' (Pictures of Austria). A man and a woman leave the city to go to the mountains of the Austrian Tirol to make some rock climbing. They spend one night at a mountain hut and next morning they walk up to the base of the wall and start climbing. The couple, with the man always leading, overcome a series of difficult passages and reach the summit. There they sign in the book of ascents with the names of Peter Martin and Lial, and start the descent doing several rappels.

Le Tour des Alpes du Nord

The ascent of the Matterhorn by the Hornli Ridge, filmed in July 1913 by Frederick Burlingham. The team, composed of Burlingham and four mountain guides from Zermatt, carried the 15-kilo camera and the 10-kilo tripod to the top the mountain to film the summit of the Matterhorn. Frederick Burlingham, known at the time as 'The man who kinomatographed the Matterhorn', was a traveller cinematographer and one of the mountain film pioneers. Continuing the mountain film tradition established by Ormiston-Smith, Burlingham filmed several mountaineering films largely in Switzerland, taking mountain film in a new direction of immediacy and perceived peril.

"A 'Full-day exercise in the Bernina area' by mountain soldiers under the command of Major Charles Golay. At two o'clock, 130 men broke up in Pontresina, and they were standing on the Piz Palu about an hour and a half later, and returned to Pontresina in daylight. With the spectacular action Golay introduced the superiors as well as the public the winter suitability of the mountain groups. Bartholome Schocher and Andreas Pedrett were the filmmakers and the young Egon Sommer the photographer."

The film shows training maneuvers by the 'Fiamme Verdi' (Green Flames) brigade, instructed by the mountaineering military school of Aosta. The maneuvers include camping, rock climbing, mountain rescue, military positions, alpine and glacier progression, and ski mountaineering. The film was produced in 1939 by the Instituto Nazionale Luce during the Italian Fascist regime.

"An early color film presented as 'Ascent to the Bernina Massif'. Two mountaineers break from the Forno hut and first climb the Punta Rasica and then the needle Fiamma. The mountaineers are equipped with canvas backpack, felt hats, hemp rope, woodpickel and cigarettes. Climbing is done in knickerbockers. The pictures give a good insight into the climbing style of the two men. Finally, they squat on the tip of the needle and enjoy the panoramic view, before they descend by rappel."

Vers les Cimes is a documentary about alpinism that takes place in the Bernese Alps. It was directed by Charles-Georges Duvanel in 1940 and produced by Cinégram.

This short looks at the sport of rock climbing. A team of three men ascend a rock wall on Southern California's Tahquitz Rock (also known as Lily Rock) above Idyllwild. The various climbing techniques are explained, as well as the dangers one encounters in this sport. We also see the team rappel from the summit. A second team, used for comic relief, has nothing but problems.

An early silent color film of Glacier National Park and Mount Rainier. The film is part of the 'Our Colorful World' series, produced by Bell & Howell. It shows a drive up to the Logan Pass in Glacier National Park, and a two-day ascent to Mount Rainier through Nisqually Glacier by two men and a woman. This Filmosound Library series produced in the early 1940s initially included thirty-seven single reels, for the most part silent, bringing beauty spots and wildlife of America and the world to the school screen in full natural color.

Sound and shortened version of 'Im Kampf mit dem Berge', Arnold Fanck's second major mountaineering film, from 1921. The film follows two mountain enthusiasts, battling through a glacier area in the Swiss mountains. The mountaineers are two very prominent skiers at the time, Hannes Schneider and Ilse Rohde, who climb the Lyskamm. Arnold Fanck's film production company (Berg und Sportfilm GmbH) was acquired in 1925 by the UFA, whose cultural department reedited the film into a short and sound version in 1940 with the music of Giuseppe Becce.

Record of the 1934 German expedition to Nanga Parbat, led by Willy Merkl and with the full backing of the new Nazi government. Peter Aschenbrenner and Erwin Schneider reached an estimated height of 7,895m on July 6, but were forced to return because of worsening weather. On July 7 they and 14 others were trapped by a ferocious storm at 7,480m. During the desperate retreat that followed, three famous German mountaineers, Uli Wieland, Willo Welzenbach and Merkl himself, and six Sherpas died of exhaustion, exposure and altitude sickness, and several more suffered severe frostbite.

A rock climbing in the Bavarian Allgäu Alps in Germany. The camera follows two mountaineers on a climb. We see all stages of the ascent, from the screes at the foot of the mountain up to the difficult ledges that require the use of pitons and belay ropes. The mountaineers ascend from Einödsbach to the Waltenberger Haus. After they have surmounted a chimney, the mountaineers eventually reach the summit. From there, they descend with ropes.