

Established in 1821, the Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix is the first and largest guides' company in the world. Wiser for its historical organisation, this diverse community of self-employed professionals operates according to two rock-solid pillars: an in-turn work distribution and an emergency fund to support guides injured from work. Who are these women and men who have sworn allegiance to their passion for the mountains? How do they cope with the hazards that are inherent to their occupation? In other words, what does "being a guide" mean in 21st century, and what makes it so remarkable? Thanks to its numerous moving accounts, this films draws a warm portrait of the guides and takes the audience deep into a very unordinary group of professionals. Undoubtedly a sensitive documentary served with stunning images!
6.6On 15 May, 2006, double amputee Mark Inglis reached the summit of Mt Everest. It was a remarkable achievement and Inglis was feted by press and public alike. But only a few days later he was plunged into a storm of controversy when it was learned that he had passed an incapacitated climber, Englishman David Sharp, leaving him to a lonely end high in the Death Zone.
10.0Maurice Barrard and Liliane Bontemps met in 1973 in Peru. Four years later, they are married and start their life together in the Loire Valley. She is a physiotherapist, he is an educator. For them, although settled not far from Chartres, the mountains are never far away. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, they embark on high-altitude expeditions. First individually, then together. In 1982, they were at the top of Gasherbrum 2, an ascent filmed in this documentary prelude to other future ascents including the Nanga Parbat in 1984, after an aborted attempt a year earlier, which made Liliane Barrardi the first woman to climb this mountain. of Karakoram. The "tallest couple in the world" will not stop there. After the Makalu in 1985, in the spring of 1986 they will attempt the ascent of K2 and its 8,611 meters... Un Homme, Une Femme, Un 8000 was broadcast in the program Les Carnets de L'Aventure in 1983.
8.0As darkness fell on May 10, 1996, a fast moving storm of unimaginable ferocity trapped three climbing teams high on the slopes of Mount Everest. The climbers, exhausted from their summit climb, were soon lost in darkness, in a fierce blizzard, far from the safety of High Camp at 26,000 feet. World-renowned climber and filmmaker David Breashears, who aided the rescue efforts back in 1996, now returns to Everest to tell the fuller story of what really happened on that legendary climb. Through remarkably intimate interviews with the climbers and Sherpas many who have never spoken before on American television Breashears sheds new light on the worst climbing tragedy in Mount Everest s history.
7.7In the shady campgrounds of Yosemite valley, climbers carved out a counterculture lifestyle of dumpster-diving and wild parties that clashed with the conservative values of the National Park Service. And up on the walls, generation after generation has pushed the limits of climbing, vying amongst each other for supremacy on Yosemite's cliffs. "Valley Uprising" is the riveting, unforgettable tale of this bold rock climbing tradition in Yosemite National Park: half a century of struggle against the laws of gravity -- and the laws of the land.
10.0Marcel is on the eve of his 95th birthday. He trained his two sons, Claude and Yves, in the world of climbing where they are key figures. When old age came, a climbing buff, Marcel could not give up his passion. He then begins a final procession towards his last Mirror at the age of 94, accompanied by his sons. The northwest wall of the famous 450-meter Argentine Mirror (canton of Vaud, Switzerland) is the scene of Marcel's adventure, at the height of his art, a feat and a beautiful family story.
10.0Joseph 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.
10.0This is Gaston Rebuffat's fourth film, in which, with several close friends, he discovers the sublime landscapes of the Alps. “Mont-Blanc is beautiful. I climbed it several times depending on the time, the color of the sky and the shape of the cornices and ridges. Because of the weather and also because of this feeling of altitude, Mont-Blanc provides great pleasure. For the guide, Mont Blanc is his garden, but the garden becomes more beautiful when shown to a friend. Personally, I really like the bivouacs; only there one penetrates a little the mystery of the altitude. That's why I immediately accepted when Tazieff expressed the desire to spend the night at the top of Mont Blanc in an igloo. The film won the Grand Prix at the Trento Film Festival in 1961.
10.0Immersive documentary in two parts, filmed in high-resolution 360° 3D, which follows Alex Honnold's journey through Yosemite National Park, home to the famous El Capitan – immortalized in the film “Free Solo”, then at Red Rocks , in Nevada, west of Las Vegas. Then it's off to Europe where he teams up with Swiss climber Nicolas Hojac in some of the most difficult solo free climbs in the Dolomites. In episode 2, the two climbers tackle the Directe americaine on the Aiguille du Dru in Chamonix and the Kuffner ridge on Mont Maudit, the second highest peak of the Mont Blanc massif, in free solo.
10.0A film about the preparation of the "Trilogy For a Single Man," about the medical and nutritional monitoring of French mountaineer Christophe Profit during his climbing "trilogy" and the period of intensive training that preceded one of the most fabulous "chains" ever made by a mountaineer. On March 12 and 13, 1987, Christophe Profit, then 26, successfully climbed the three largest north faces of the Alps in winter in 40 hours: Grandes Jorasses, Eiger, Matterhorn. But beyond this coverage of the event, it is the behind-the-scenes that is revealed, the story of this project, the ups and downs of its preparations and the personality of its author, a dancer of the verticals, who concentrates at his fingertips the energy and reflexes of life itself.
10.0Film about the first French expedition in 1968 in the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan. After a long and laborious approach by R4 car in the footsteps of Marco Polo, through Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, to the high valley of Wakhan, in the heart of the Hindu Kush, Isabelle and Henri Agresti (high mountain guide), accompanied by Yves Dominoni, Renée and Lucien Agresti, more than precious help, explore a little-known valley for 40 days, and climb some virgin peaks of 5000 and 6000 meters. The return to Europe will be by the tracks and roads of the south: Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria... A trip of approach to go later to explore the mountains of China, then still closed, and the Tibetan side of Everest... The project of a lifetime.
0.0Account of the first French expedition to the Himalayas, which attempted to climb the hidden peak (Gasherbrum I) in 1936, from the preparations for the trip to the end of the ascent. After a long approach walk through quasi-desert regions, then on a huge glacier, the caravan of 700 porters arrives at the foot of Hidden Peak. The expedition was led by Henry de Ségogne, with Jean Charignon, Pierre Allain, Raymond Leininger, Jean Carle, Jean Deudon, Louis Neltner, Jacques Azémar, doctor Jeand Arlaud and director Marcel Ichac. Weather conditions, logistical problems and a strike among Sherpas forced the team to retire at 6900m on the south face. The film received the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1938.
5.5On May 23, 1971, a French expedition led by Robert Paragot successfully climbed Makalu via its west pillar. Makalu is one of the five highest peaks in the world, located in the Himalayas on the Nepalese-Tibetan border. Jean-Pierre Janssen and Lucien Bérardini filmed this expedition, where Robert Paragot spoke about the expedition conditions, life at altitude, and his state of mind as expedition leader. On the return to base camp, Jean-Pierre Janssen interviewed Lucien Berardini, Georges Payot, Jean-Claude Mosca, François Guillot, and Jean-Paul Paris, all of whom played a key role in bringing Bernard Mellet and Yannick Seigneur to the summit. Expedition members: Robert Paragot (expedition leader), Georges Payot, Yannick Seigneur, Claude Jager, Jean-Claude Mosca, François Guillot, Bernard Mellet, Lucien Bérardini, Jean-Paul Paris, Robert Jacob, Jacques Marchal (surgeon).
10.0The film of the first ascent of Mont Foraker (5,304 m) in the Denali chain in Alaska, by the southeast ridge of independence in 1976, which remains years after an unequaled sporting and human adventure. The 7 members of the expedition, Henri Agresti, Jean-Paul Bouquier, Jean-Marie Galmiche, Werner Landry, Gérard Creton, Isabelle Agresti, Hervé Thivierge, all came to the top after thirty days of climbing in conditions still limits. Breathtaking images where the grandiose views of the icy desert and the scenes of daily life alternate on a most rough mountains on the planet. The film received the Gentiane d'Or Festival prizes from Thirty 1977, Public Prize Festival des Diablerets 1977, SFP Festival de la Plagne in 1977.
10.0A film about the 1979 expedition to Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, led by Lyon native Jean-Pierre Frésafond. After a city tour, they set off by bus and then on foot with Sherpas to base camp. Having set out to attempt the Rupal Pillar, the expedition was unable to reach its objective in time (torrential rain, blocked roads, scree, etc.) and lost precious time before choosing to attempt the Mazeno Ridge by default. The team theoretically had the means to do so, since it brought together no fewer than 21 strong climbers, with a large core from Lyon—a concentration of talent rarely seen. But the resulting group dynamic worked contrary to expectations, and they had to settle for the most modest of consolation prizes: the ascent of the First Peak (6,880 meters). Frésafond recounted this in a book-testimony "The Revenge of the Himalayas - The Human Adventure at Nanga-Parbat".
10.0This film - without commentary and simply accompanied by local music - relates the 1969 ascent of the north face of Kohe Shakhawr, a Himalayan peak located on the border with Afghanistan, by mountaineers Benoît Mathieu, Jacques Soubis, René Thomas, Jean-Paul Paris, Isabelle Agresti, Henri Agresti, Roger Dietz, Jean-Pierre Frésafond, Paul Gendre, Claude Jager and Félix Magnin. As is often the case in Henri Agresti's films, there is an encounter with other peoples, other cultures, documented at length in the introduction. Then, after the interminable approach, the ascent begins: distribution of camps, successive assaults on the mountain, walking on steep scree and snowy slopes, climbing on icy walls... The arrival at the summit, without the aid of oxygen devices, seems to take place in slow motion: exhaustion mixes with the joy of the victorious mountaineers who will celebrate their success on their return to base camp on August 24, 1969.
10.0In the austere "Horseshoe Cirque", attempts on ice are so impressive and require such a high degree of skill, that after a discrete beginning in 1976, there was a wait of twenty years before new pioneers dared the challenge. Each has returned, marked for life by the extraordinary experience. The opening of The White Witch in January, 2006 by Philippe Batoux, François Damilano and Benoît Robert was the occasion to revisit this emblematic site. Here is an exceptional panorama where incredible ice formations give way to challenging rocky climbs and vibrant testimonials...
10.0The French Alpine Club's film about the French expedition to conquer Makalu (8481m) via the west pillar in Nepal, which began on February 24, 1971. Composed of 11 mountaineers, Robert Paragot (expedition leader), Georges Payot, Lucien Berardini, Yannick Seigneur, Claude Jager, Jean-Paul Paris, Jean-Claude Mosca, François Guillot, Bernard Mellet, Robert Jacob and Jacques Marchal (surgeon), it took twenty-five days of walking on the Himalayan trails with 460 porters and 18 Sherpas to transport 14 tons of equipment to reach the base camp. Finally, it was Mellet and Seigneur who managed to reach the summit on May 23, 1971: 8481 m, temperature - 30°, oxygen 30%, no wind.
