Born in Chamonix (2018)

Of A Lifetime

OF A LIFETIME is a celebration of discovery, adventure, and the passing of the torch to the next generation against the breathtaking backdrop of Antarctica. It chronicles the renowned De Le Rue family’s journey as Xavier, Victor, and 18-year-old Mila sail across the Drake Passage to ride the unimaginably steep icy lines of the white continent. Mila’s initiation into big mountain free riding is captured through personal diaries, showcasing her growth as she faces her fears and embraces the challenge. A film by Jérôme Tanon

Stars at Noon

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.

Les 4 Faces de l'Aiguille Verte

An adventure of extreme skiing in the Mont Blanc area

Christophe

It is 1 p.m. on June 30, 1982, when Christophe Profit, 24, shows up at the foot of Les Drus with his pof bag, his climbing shoes and nothing else. He will try the west face of Les Drus in "solo", in the Mont Blanc massif by "Directe Américaine", 1100 meters of vertical and smooth rock. Christophe will achieve the feat of climbing the wall in free solo, without using a rope or any belaying technique. At 4:10 p.m., barely more than three hours after the start of his ascent, the new climbing star can embrace the Virgin of the Drus at the same time as the career of a high-level mountaineer. Three years later, on July 25, 1985, he climbed the north faces of the Matterhorn, the Eiger and the Jorasses in the same day. Awarded at many mountain film festivals, this great documentary is a magnificent testimony to one man's passion for climbing, the mountains and adventure.

All Time

Get ready to go deep into the stuff of which snowy dreams are made with Warren Miller’s ALL TIME. Celebrate the birth of ski towns like Sun Valley and Aspen, icons and innovators like the original hotdoggers, and the most outlandish locations ever skied. Then, catch up with Maine’s finest athlete of today, Donny Pelletier, and meet the next generation at Woodward Park City. Through it all, Jonny Moseley and special guests will share their own stories to bring us to this moment.

Refuges

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Steep

Steep traces the legacy of extreme skiing from its early pioneers to the daredevils of today.

Playground

In their 58th feature film, Playground (narrated by Olympic gold medalist Jonny Moseley), Warren Miller Entertainment captures the latest in extraordinary winter sports action in stunning High-Definition with a killer soundtrack to match. From an indoor ski park in Dubai and the mystical elevations of the Japanese mountains to the frigid norther reaches of Sweden, this film follows the planet's leading skiers of the freeride movement - Jon Olsson, Sean Petit, Dan Treadway, Peter Olenick, and others - to exhilarating destinations where anything is possible.

Gary Hemming, le beatnik des cimes

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 Man Who Skied Down Everest

This Oscar-winning documentary tells the story behind Japanese daredevil Yuichiro Miura's 1970 effort to ski down the world's tallest mountain. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.

From Shade to Light

French alpinist Charles Dubouloz’s attempt at a rarely repeated route on the fabled north face of the Grandes Jorasses, spending five frigid nights alone above the lights of Chamonix in the dead of winter.

First in Line

A screen adaptation of the well-known novel by Roger Frison-Roche about the harsh lives of mountain guides and their families in the French Alps, near Chamonix and the French/Swiss/Italian borders... Like his father, Zian Servettaz is a dedicated mountain man. His Italian-born wife Bianca does not adjust well to his mountain village in France, and to the ever life-threatening dangers presented by his mountain guiding and climbing. She briefly returns to Italy and to her family. However, after Zian's insistence and trip to Italy, she returns to mountain life in the French Alps. Once back there, events will unfold, changing their lives as well as those of other mountain people forever.

Entre Terre et Ciel

This 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.

Objectif Mont Blanc, Sur Les Traces D'Un Géant

A climatologist, a physicist, and a volcanologist set out to conquer the highest peak in the Alps. Through exceptional images, the film recounts their odyssey and reveals the immense wealth of this natural laboratory. Straddling France, Italy, and Switzerland, the Mont Blanc massif was formed 240 million years ago. Four times the size of Paris, it covers 400 km2. Its summit, the highest in Western Europe, rises to 4,810 meters. Three scientists begin its ascent: Martine Rebetez, a Swiss climatologist; Étienne Klein, a philosopher and physicist at the French Atomic Energy Commission; and Jacques-Marie Bardintzeff, a geologist and volcanologist. Advancing in two roped teams, they are accompanied by Jean-Franck Charlet and François-Régis Thévenet, mountain guides, as well as physiologist Hugo Nespoulet.

Icebreaker

At the the Killington ski resort something has gone awry. Evil terrorists led by the sinister Greig have taken the resort hostage with a stolen nuclear device. It's up to Ski Patrol bum Matt Foster to save the day... and his fiancé.

Days of My Youth

Red Bull Media House, in association with MSP Films, presents Days Of My Youth, a new action-packed film that examines every skier's lifelong affinity for the sport and proves that skiing can keep you feeling young for a lifetime.

Le Pilier de la Solitude

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Re:Session

Follow the crew as they score in one of Alagna, Italy’s deepest seasons on record. Check out forbidden powder in Poland, massive wedges in Colorado, new gap jumps in Utah, and seven weeks of epic riding conditions in Alaska.

Esperanto

Esperanto is TGR’s latest action-packed mountain bike film with an added twist. Mixing the rock stars of the sport with a cast of unknown and up-and-coming heroes, the film explores how we share our dreams through a universal two-wheeled language no matter what our native tongue may be. The sacred ritual of the ride might sound different all across the world – whether it’s a full-face getting pulled down to drop into a big jump line or wheeling a beat-up bike out of a mud hut to pedal to school – but it’s a universal process no matter what language we speak. There are more than 7000 languages spoken on Earth. In 1887 a Polish-Jewish doctor named L.L. Zamenhof created a new one, a universal second language based on a combination of existing widely-spoken European languages. Its goal, to help bring people together from different ideologies, beliefs, and nations and ultimately to help end war. The language was called Esperanto. Translated into English it means ‘one who hopes.’

La Sorcière Blanche

In 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...

Entre Ciel et Neige

René Collet, skier member of the French team, guides a friend from the summit of the Aiguille du Midi. This descent is an opportunity to focus on the remarkable elements of the terrain: the cable car and its work still in progress, the surrounding peaks (Capucin, Mont Maudit, Mont Blanc). The two skiers stop regularly, here to observe climbers scaling the south face of the Aiguille, there to visit the Cosmiques Laboratory. They even take the time to rescue a skier stuck in a crevasse at the Séracs du Géant, before continuing their descent in style onto the Mer de Glace.

La République nous appelle

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.

The Mountain

Selfish Chris Teller pressures his older brother, a retired climber, to accompany him on a treacherous Alpine climb to loot the bodies of plane crash victims.

Death of a Guide

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La Voie Bonatti

In October 2010, two of France's top mountaineers, Christophe Dumarest and Yann Borgnet, fulfilled a mountaineer's dream: a six-day alpine-style ascent of Walter Bonatti's great routes through the Mont Blanc massif. Dumarest and Borgnet first climbed the north face of the Grandes Jorasses; they then climbed the Grand Capucin and the Pilier Rouge du Brouillard, completing their feat with the ascent of Mont Blanc. Their paragliding descent in Chamonix completes their feat with a touch of fun. The climbers and the director made the ethical choice not to use helicopters to shoot the film.

The Search for Freedom

THE SEARCH FOR FREEDOM is the story of a cultural revolution fueled by the human desire to live in the moment and do what makes you feel the most alive. We discover how an electrifying new world came about through pure energy and imagination and the infinite possibilities of self-expression available to anyone willing to drop in. This documentary, written and directed by Jon Long (IMAX® Extreme), is a visceral, visual experience told through the eyes some of the brightest pioneers, legends, visionaries and champions of surfing, snowboarding, skiing, skateboarding, mountain biking and more.

The Last King

Norway, 1204. A civil war between the birkebeiners —the king's men— and the baglers —supporters of the Norwegian aristocracy and the Church— ravages the country. Two men must protect a baby, the illegitimate son of King Håkon, who will be the future king and peacemaker, from those who want to kill him.

No Siesta - Christophe Dumarest & Tom Livingstone

It's one of the hardest routes on a north face that's not lacking in them: No Siesta on the Grandes Jorasses, 30 pitches of mixed, ice and rock, sometimes dubious, sometimes compact. Opened in 1986 by Jan Porvaznik and Stanislav Glejdura, No Siesta has seen a few repeats that have made it a legend: first solo in 3 days by Patrice Glairon-Rappaz in 2000, first winter and free by Robert Jasper in 2003. For the past ten years, the (rare) repeaters have been setting off on this route in the fall, or winter. Christophe Dumarest knows the north face of the Jorasses well: and for good reason, with this ascent of No Siesta his counter shows twelve routes on the north face! Not far from being a record, no doubt. Roped up with Briton Tom Livingstone, the team climbed No Siesta with two bivouacs. A short and successful film about what remains one of the most famous routes in the Alps.

Pierre Mazeaud, La Vie En Face(s)

Pierre Mazeau has managed to unite three of his passions which seem to have nothing in common, at a very high level: mountaineering, jurisprudence and policy. The Everest mountaineer, rescued from the Freney Pillar, the passionate jurist, the former sports minister, privy counsellor, and president of the French Constitutional Court is a charismatic personality. This sensitive film portrait follows a line, which Pierre Mazeaud himself has quoted: “Alpinism belongs to those who provide themselves with means to reach their goals, to those who are fully committed to a goal, to those, who know the value of solidarity of men, and to those who are aware that true human existence can only be fulfilled by proceeding with a team of roped-partners.”

Explore Mont Blanc

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Les Conquérants De l'Impossible : Portrait De René Desmaison

This episode is part of the series "The Conquerors of the Impossible (2/3)". From the 1950s to the 1980s, René Desmaison achieved a large number of "firsts". A specialist in normal routes (west face of Les Drus, Pilier du Freyney, Shroud...), he experienced a tragedy at the Grandes Jorasses, where his exceptional resistance allowed him to survive against all logic. He is the first to claim the practice of the mountain as a high level sport. A man of contrasts, his apparent strength hides great shyness and an unalterable enthusiasm despite the years. Beyond mountaineering, it is the spirit of adventure that has always inhabited him. A whole life devoted to mountaineering.

Beyond the Summits

Catherine Destivelle is an ambassador for the French Alps and is well known in France and abroad. In Beyond the Summits, viewers will feel like they are climbing up the mountain with her. The film shows three classic Chamonix routes with three different climbing partners. Each partner was chosen because they had a profound impact on her life. The camera captures the magnificent scenery, as well as frank and intimate moments during the ascents ...

The Ascent of Mont Blanc

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.

Perilous Assignment

"Perilous Assignment" is an episode of ABC's Walt Disney Presents. Disney loved to show viewers behind the scenes of the daring shoots of its theatrically released or TV shows. The theme of the episode is the making of his next film, The Third Man on the Mountain, an adaptation of James Ramsey Ullman's novel Banner in the Sky, based on the true story of the first ascent of the Matterhorn. Walt Disney will not be limited to a simple promotional making-of. He offers to meet exceptional people, including the French mountain guide Gaston Rébuffat. The latter will show climbing techniques and then reveal breathtaking images of his ascents of steep cliffs with a client for the ascent of Mont-Blanc, filmed for the occasion. In 1958, Walt Disney will therefore offer him to be deputy director on the high mountain scenes of the film "The Third Man on the Mountain".

Les Amants des Drus

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The Man Who Returns from Above

What compels a man to push the limits of what is attainable ever higher? After thirty years of relentless struggle with the highest peaks on earth, Marc Batard has finally found the answers to these questions. He had to reach the summit of Everest twice, once shattering the record for fastest time in 24 hours without oxygen, and climb the most difficult faces of the Alps to glimpse the path to inner healing. It was through physical suffering that he was able to confront the pain of his soul. He was finally able to talk about the violence of his childhood, the shock he carried like a ball and chain for decades. Having completed his summit therapy, Marc Batard tells his story in this documentary by Gilles Perret.

Résilience

Résilience traces the story of Kevin Rolland during his world record attempt on a quarter pipe at a very important time in his life. He puts all his cards on the table hoping for the best possible outcome.

Sur Les Traces De Premier De Cordée

"Sur Les Traces De Premier De Cordée", a color documentary from 1952 which will be released the same year as the eponymous photo book published by Arthaud, features Roger Frison-Roche and his sidekick Georges Tairraz II on the Aiguille du Grépon (3482 m) in the Aiguilles massif which overlooks the Chamonix valley. Together they co-produce the images of the ascent. The young Pierre Tairraz, who completed his training in Paris, at the school in the rue de Vaugirard (Cinema promotion in 1953), also took part in this very technical aerial filming as assistant to his father Georges Tairraz II and cameraman.

Jean des Bossons

Jean des Bossons is a documentary-fiction which recounts the activities of a high mountain guide in 1947. Around Chamonix Mont-Blanc, the guide Jean des Bossons, interpreter by the mountaineer Armand Charlet, accompanies on mountain hikes, Jean-Pierre, an apprentice guide. The novice, skis on the shoulder, is already clumsy. The professional taught him how to travel on skis uphill and downhill, then mountaineering in ice and rock parishes. By dint of training, Jean-Pierre has made it his job. Guides are also lifeguards. A group went to a glacier to rescue a man who had fallen into a crevasse. During this rescue, Jean des Bossons is the victim of an accident. A drama that prevents him from practicing the profession, but not climbing. The man sinks into the fog and Jean-Pierre cannot find him.

Des Hommes Et Des Montagnes

History, advice and demonstrations of mountaineering in the Mont Blanc massif by the renowned guides of the National School of Ski and Mountaineering from Chamonix. The film starts with an historical summary illustrating the aspirations and methods that lead man to conquer the mountains. Armand Charlet teaches mountaineering techniques and takes his students to the field for glacier or rock exercises. Gaston Rebuffat makes demonstrations of particularly dangerous climbs. At altitude, people move in solitude, cold and silence, like circus acrobats without spectators, but nothing stops the modern mountaineer.

Avalanche

After an avalanche of snow crashes into their ski resort, a holiday at a winter wonderland turns into a game of survival for a group of vacationers.

The Castaways Of Mont Blanc

This documentary is a reconstruction, based on archive footage, testimonies, and filmed reconstructions, of the Vincendon / Henry tragedy. December 1956: Jean Vincendon and François Henry, two young mountaineers, aspire to join the High Mountain Group. Lacking experience, they set out to climb Mont Blanc via the Brenva spur in the middle of winter. The weather conditions deteriorated, and they decided to give up before meeting Walter Bonatti and Sylvano Gheser. They then decided to continue the climb and set off in two different roped parties. Bonatti decided to take refuge at the Vallot refuge higher up, rather than descend. The two young mountaineers, overcome by the poor weather conditions and fatigue, remained stuck for several days at 4,000 meters. What followed was a completely disorganized rescue operation that became, for more than ten days, a spectacle for all of France and a national tragedy.

The Unfamous of Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps, rises to 4,810 m and was first climbed on August 8, 1786. Chamonix natives Jacques Balmat and Michel Paccard set out on the afternoon of August 7 and returned victorious on the morning of the 9th, after two nights spent outdoors. This film is a staging that reconstructs this great event with all the problems it created and resolved, thus contributing to the emergence of the modern concept of mountaineering. Denis Ducroz, guide and filmmaker, immerses us in the minds and times of these two men, 224 years later.

Maurice Baquet, The Accorded

At once a high-level musician, member of the October Group, entertainer, theater artist, film actor, mountaineer, and skier, Maurice Baquet, always on the move, structured his life around two common threads: the cello and the mountains. He once defined himself as a "cellist-skier," "all alone" in this category, which prompted James Couttet, world ski champion, to say: "Of all the skiers I know, he's the best cellist." Echoing this, Professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur, André Navarra, added: "Of all the cellists I know, he's the best skier." Throughout his varied yet coherent career, Baquet helped to project a joyful and artistic image of the mountains. Who better to talk about Maurice and all his adventures than his alter-ego: Cérébos, the faithful cello that never left his side? From Paris to Chamonix, from the stage to the granite slabs and snowy slopes, this film follows Cérébos, crossing the century and above all... smiling!

Les Lumières de Vallot

Joseph Vallot, geographer, naturalist and mountaineer born in 1854 in Lodève, was a visionary man, full of humor and whose curiosity was insatiable. He had spent some forty years of his life studying the Mont Blanc massif, sacrificing a good part of his fortune to this multifaceted passion. He was notably the first to demonstrate that one could sleep, work and even do science at an altitude of over 4000 meters, at a time when ascents to the summit of Western Europe were still adventurous expeditions. This documentary tribute follows in his footsteps, via the route taken at the time, on foot from Chamonix via the Grands Mulets refuge to the summit of Mont Blanc to the Joseph Vallot observatory nestled at an altitude of 4400m, with a team of guides, journalists and scientists.

Guido Magnone - Le Baladeur

Guido Magnone's incredible adventure begins strangely on the banks of the Ourcq canal among a group of kids who dream of swimming. Guido, the solitary son of "rital", dives to get noticed, succeeds, takes a liking to it, breaks his first record, collects medals. At the same time, he draws, attends the Beaux-Arts, is accepted with open arms and befriends the sculptors César and Féraud. At the end of the war, during a health stay in Chamonix, it is love at first sight for the mountains, climbing. Guido's ascent is now dizzying. He stormed the west face of the Drus, then the Fitzroy and the Tour de Mustagh, summits reputed to be impossible. He rubs shoulders with the greatest, Lionel Terray, Maurice Herzog, and participates in the Makalu expedition, camera in hand, or those of Jannu and Chacraraju. Later, in his fifties, Guido hangs up the carabiners and participates in the foundation of the UCPA

Les Louves

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Stars and Storms

Gaston Rébuffat is part of the history of mountaineering. Marseillais prodigy, high mountain guide of the Chamonix guide company and famous for the ascent of the most famous north faces: some are 1st rehearsals, others 1st French or 1st as a guide. Filmed by Georges Tairraz, this masterpiece released in 1955 reveals the beauty of effort and the pleasure of sharing in the mountains. Apart from the feat, the mountains are not there to satisfy egocentric ambitions. A classic !

The Sky Piercer

Snow athletes Sam Smoothy, Xavier De Le Rue, Nadine Wallner and Fraser McDougall take on the challenge of skiing down New Zealand’s highest mountain, the notorious Mount Cook (Aoraki). Will extreme weather and icy conditions defeat them?