Agassizhorn: Mountain of Shame (2018)

Restitution? Africa's Fight for Its Art

There is an interlinking history of violent European colonialism and the cultural legacy of ethnographic collections in institutions. This documentary traces the progression of colonial history from the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 to the systematic elimination of cultural traditions, religions and lifeways which would occur sporadically through genocides and warfare until the early 20th century throughout the African continent—surveying the inquiries and movements for historical justice, the relationships between European institutions and colonial violence and following enduring struggles against these organisations to regain what was taken.

Los Negros

Seville, Spain, 14th century. A group of black slaves brought from Africa form the Hermandad de los Negros, a Holy Week brotherhood that has survived over the centuries, despite the opposition of the powerful; still active, it is one of the oldest institutions in Europe.

Die Schweiz von oben

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The Network

It's not a website. It's not an internet forum. It's not spray, beta, or slander. It's not a text message or a tick mark or a tick list or a film. It's all those things. This year, Red Bull and Chuck Fryberger Films have teamed up to bring you a glimpse inside an elite network of athletes who live their lives to train, compete, explore, and inspire by pushing their limits on the hardest climbing in the world. The best climbers in the world are all connected in a constant cycle of training, preparation, competition, and outdoor challenges. The Network connects both past and present - bouldering, sport, and competition climbing - and this cutting-edge film tangles the viewer inside the spider web of connections that makes up the world of the professional rock climber. Join 6-time world cup champion Killian Fischhuber as he and the best in the game explore areas old and new for adventures, lifestyle, and some of the hardest moves in the world.

Absence of Me

Hundreds of boxes left by the famous uruguayan musician and political activist Alfredo Zitarrosa (1936-1989) who run away the dictatorship in the 70s, have not been touched since his death 27 years ago. Now his wife and daughters are trying to save the memories, tapes, music and sound recordings that the boxes contain to the posterity.

Resistance Climbing

In 2014, during a trip, American Tim Bruns discovered cliffs in a small village five minutes north of Ramallah in Palestine and got to work equipping all the easy routes, then setting up climbing routes so that we can start teaching people how to climb. Bruns and Harris also opened Wadi Climbing, the first indoor climbing gym in Palestine. Today, gathered in the conflict-torn hills of Palestine, a diverse team of Bedouins, activists and urban professionals have embraced climbing as a much-needed respite from the burden of Israeli occupation. American writer and climber Andrew Bisharat visits the West Bank to explore his own roots and the power of climbing to transform lives. This documentary is part of the Reel Rock 17 series released in 2023.

CARA-B

A desktop documentary that focuses on the Golden Record that NASA sent into space in the late 1970s. The piece reflects on issues such as the power of scientific discourse to produce revisions of the world, the evolution of the concept of the archive and the resignification of borders in the rhetoric of space colonialism.

Denis Urubko - New Polish Citizen

Mountaineering legend Denis Urubko shares his thoughts on what mountaineering is (or isn't). "It's important to get up from the table before you're full at mealtime. Sometimes people try to enjoy life to the fullest. And I'm afraid of it," he says in this interview given to Dominik Szczepański and produced by Jarek Tokarski for Duży Format.

Là-Haut, Un supplément d'âme

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Martha: A Picture Story

In 1970s New York, photographer Martha Cooper captured some of the first images of graffiti at a time when the city had declared war on it. Decades later, Cooper has become an influential godmother to a global movement of street artists.

Black Man's Houses

In 1832 the government of Van Diemen’s Land sent the last Aboriginal resistance fighters into exile at Wybalenna on Flinders Island, bringing an end to the Black War and opening a new chapter in the struggle for justice and survival by Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Black Man’s Houses tells a dramatic story of the quest by Aboriginal people to reclaim the graves of their ancestors against a background of racism and denial. Documenting a moving memorial re-enactment of the funeral of the great chief Manalargenna, the film also charts the cultural strength and resilience of his descendants as they are forced to fight for recognition in a society that is not ready to remember the terrible events of the past.

Cervino 1901

In 1953, in an old cabinet of a former photographer from Zermatt, a first mountaineering film was found. It was a silent film from the first era showing the ascent of the Matterhorn by a group of guides across the Hornli ridge. The film is attributed to the American Frederick Burlingham and dated 1901 and is therefore the first mountaineering film in history. The story of the discovery was also dressed in a certain aura of legend and mystery as it was told that the original copy of the film had been lost forever in a shipwreck in the Atlantic and was the only copy printed that remained. The film was renamed Cervin 1901 or Cervino 1901, and in 2014, after being restored again. But the truth is that this whole story, which has somehow held together throughout this period, is full of inaccuracies...

The Shadow of Hate: A History of Intolerance in America

The film expresses the history of oppression, discrimination, violence and hate in America. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Brette, A Year On The Road

Brette Harrington, 24, is a rising talent in the climbing world. From overhead free ascents to long alpine solos, she excels in all disciplines of the sport. Join Brette on a journey around the world, from frozen waterfalls in the Canadian Rockies to climbing great walls at El Capitan Proving Grounds to the Chiara di Luna monument in alpine Mecca Cerro Torre in Patagonia.

Himalayan Epic

In 1951, the 3rd French expedition to the Himalayas set out to conquer Nanda Devi (7,800 m). The attempt to cross the ridge between the main peak and Nanda Devi East resulted in the death of two members of the expedition. Expedition leader Roger Duplat and Gilbert Vignes disappear on the ridge somewhere below the main peak. Tenzing Norgay is part of a support team on this expedition; he and Louis Dubost climb Nanda Devi Est in search of the two missing people. A few years later, Tenzing discovered that Nanda Devi was the most difficult climb he had ever made.

Karim's Footsteps

Documentary about Abdul Karim, the most famous porter of the Karakoram, born in Hushé, a small village in northern Pakistan where the only way to earn money to survive the harsh winters is to work as a mountain porter with the expeditions on the highest peaks in the country. He climbed with the greatest mountaineers: Messner, Kukuczka, Boivin, Bonington... But his last, most ambitious and revolutionary project of all was to create the first women's mountaineering team in Baltistan.

Jim Bridwell, The Yosemite Living Legend

Jim Bridwell was one of the best climbers in the world in the 70s, 80s. The documentary chronicles Bridwell's career from those early days to his final ascents in 2001. The film traces Jim Bridwell's journey through numerous interviews with other legendary free climbing personalities such as Leo Houlding and Ron Kauk. See him climb some of Yosemite's historic routes with today's young climbers paying homage to this true legend of free climbing. In an unpublished document from 1981, he is seen in one of his famous Zodiac ascents in El Capitan with and Fred East.

A So-Called Archive

With a forensic lens, Onyeka Igwe's A So-Called Archive interrogate the decomposing repositories of Empire. Blending footage shot over the past year in two separate colonial archive buildings - one in Lagos, Nigeria, and the other in Bristol, United Kingdom - this double portrait considers the 'sonic shadows' that colonial images continue to generate, despite the disintegration of the memory and their materials. It mixes the genres of the radio play, the corporate video tour and detective noir, with a haunting and critical approach to the horror of discovery.

The Dark Side of Everest

May 25, 1996 - Bruce Herrod, a South African mountaineer reached the summit of Everest at 5 p.m. On the radio, we urge him to come down as soon as possible because the descent is dangerous in the middle of the night. A few hours later, no news from him. From this South African expedition which turned into a fiasco and another expedition carried out in parallel, the testimonies of the members of these expeditions show to what extent the thirst for climbing to the top of certain mountaineers, combined with the lack of oxygen , can alter the lucidity of climbers to the point of changing their relationship to death and thus lead them to neglect other expedition members in order to ensure their victory or save their own life.

Quicker'n a Wink

In this Pete Smith Specialty short, Dr. Harold E. Edgerton demonstrates stroboscopic photography, which he helped develop. This process allows us to see in slow motion what happens during events that occur too fast to be seen by the naked eye. Examples shown here include a bullet in flight as it shatters a light bulb, the moment of impact when a kicker kicks a football, and the motion of a hummingbird's wings as it hovers.

Everest Unmasked

Record of the first ascent of Everest made without the use of oxygen equipment, made in May 1978 by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler. Could it be done? Would their blood vessels burst? Would they suffer brain damage leading to madness? Nobody was sure. Messner: 'I would never come here for trying Everest with oxygen. That is not a challenge for me.' A fascinating piece of history, well filmed by Leo Dickinson and Eric Jones (above the South Col Messner used a cine camera to continue the filming), featuring Messner and Habeler's thoughts. The film follows the usual sequence from Namche to Base Camp, through the Icefall, to Camps I, II and III. It also shows historical footage of the pioneering Mallory and Shipton expeditions.

Concerning Violence

Concerning Violence is based on newly discovered, powerful archival material documenting the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation in the Third World, accompanied by classic text from The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.

An Accidental Life

An Accidental Life is a deeply personal and vulnerable portrait of Quinn Brett, an ambitious, record-setting climber who strives to make meaning out of tragedy in the years following a near-fatal rock climbing accident on El Capitan that left her paralyzed.

Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine

A unique behind-the-scenes access to NASA’s ambitious mission to launch the James Webb Space Telescope, following a team of engineers and scientists as they take the next giant leap in our quest to understand the universe.

Gyrischachen - von Sünden, Sofas und Cervelats

A high-rise apartment built in the 1960s provides housing for 2500 people from 42 nations. Separated from the city by a river and bounded by towering sandstone cliffs, everyone attempts to live and survive in their own way. Foreigners who have a go at being Swiss, and Swiss who observe with scepticism. They meet in the corner shop run by an Iraqi living in exile, send their kids to a children’s club managed by a missionary, and old drinking mates meet regularly over a beer in the neighbourhood’s only bar. Despite all the differences, they are rather proud of the fact that they come from here.

Trilogy for One Man

The most legendary 'sequence' ever achieved by a mountaineer: on 12 and 13 March 1987, in 40 hours, 26-year-old Christophe Profit managed to climb three of the highest north faces in the Alps, in winter: Grandes Jorasses, Eiger, and Matterhorn. But over and above this 'coverage' of the feat, we discover the wings, the story behind the project, the peaks and troughs of the preparations for it, and the personality of the man behind the climbs, a dancer on sheer rock faces, focusing all the energy and reflexes of life itself in his fingertips.

Reel Rock 16

Capturing the greatest stories and sends from the year in climbing, the new films of Reel Rock 16 will deliver a joyful dose of inspiration, heart, and humor. The Reel Rock 16 lineup is our biggest release yet, with films starring Alex Honnold, Tommy Caldwell, Alex Johnson, Charles Albert, Pete Whittaker and Tom Randall. FEATURING FOUR WORLD-PREMIERE FILMS Bridge Boys A horizontal big-wall adventure on the longest, most ridiculous crack climb ever attempted. Featuring: Pete Whittaker, Tom Randall Big Things to Come An elite boulderer’s struggle with a project propels her on a decade-long journey of self-discovery. Featuring: Alex Johson Barefoot Charles Meet the opera-singing, cave-dwelling Frenchman who climbs futuristic boulder problems sans chaussons. Featuring: Charles Albert Cuddle A massive link-up of 17 alpine summits pushes a famed climbing duo to the brink - and into each others' arms. Featuring: Alex Honnold, Tommy Caldwell, Adam Stack

Cuddle

After the great crossing of Fitz Roy, in Patagonia, and the Nose in less than 2 hours, in Yosemite, Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell embark on a new adventure: the Continental Divide Ultimate Linkup (CDUL), i.e. the chain of 17 summits of Rocky Mountain National Park, in Colorado in 36 hours. The CDUL totals 56 kilometres, 6,000 meters of elevation gain and 65 pitches, with 11 routes from 5a to 6b+ climbed in simultaneous climbing. A project by Adam Stack, Caldwell's childhood friend, who gave the iconic American rope a hard time.

Notre ami l'empereur Bokassa Ier

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Rester là-bas

Algiers. From the port to the souks, passing through the Jardin d'Essai, Dominique Cabrera transports us to the land where she was born, on the other side of the Mediterranean "where the sea is saltier". If most of the pieds-noirs left Algeria in the summer of 1962, some -a minority- remained. By going to meet them, the director makes her own inner journey.

René Vautier, le rebelle

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Brave New Wild

BRAVE NEW WILD is an offbeat chronicle of America’s Golden Age of rock climbing before and after the controversial ascent of the Dawn Wall in 1970. Some forty years later, Oakley Anderson-Moore, the daughter of a pioneering climber, stumbles upon her father's old hi8 tapes, and sets out to answer the question: why climb when there's nothing to gain -- and everything to lose? Wry humor and an eclectic original soundtrack punctuate the delinquent antics of the Vulgarians in the ‘Gunks, the larger-than-life rivalry of Yosemite’s rock gods, and the fruit tramping, freight train hopping hobodom of her dad’s climbing life. This film is quintessential viewing for those who long for adventure.

Paris in the Belle Epoque

The Bokelberg photographic collection brings to life the Paris of the Belle Époque (1871-1914), an exhibition of workshops and stores with extremely beautiful shop windows before which the owners and their employees proudly pose, hiding behind their eyes the secret history of a great era.

Beyond the Frontlines: Resistance and Resilience in Palestine

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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.

Riverboom

In the year following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, young journalist Claude Baechtold finds himself in the war zone of Afghanistan. Not entirely voluntarily, the avowed anti-militarist is dragged by two fearless reporters on a round trip through the entire country.

The Imperial Lullaby

The armies of Fascist Italy conquered Addis Ababa, capital of Abyssinia, in May 1936, thus culminating the African colonial adventure of the ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini, by then lord of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia; a bloody and tragic story told through the naive drawings of Pietro Dall'Igna, an Italian schoolboy born in 1925.

Progression

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.

Over-Ice

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Reporters

The co-founder of the Gamma press agency, Raymond Depardon, created this documentary of press photographers in Paris and their subjects by following the photographers around for one month, in October, 1980. In-between long hours waiting for a celebrity to emerge from a restaurant or a hotel, boredom immediately switches to fast action as the cameras click and roll when the person appears. The reaction to the gaggle of photographers is as varied as the people they often literally chase all around town. While some of the celebrities, such as Jacques Chirac who was mayor of Paris at the time, are perceived as comical caricatures, others are shown simply going about ordinary pursuits - including Catherine Deneuve, Gene Kelly, and Jean-Luc Godard.

Rue de Blamage

The Baselstrasse is a street in Lucerne. People call it "Rue de Blamage" – it's a noisy street tucked into a narrow space between a hill and a train track. The people who live here don't usually mingle with the rich and famous, but even the roughest haunt can be a home to those who live and work there – and Baselstrasse's two kilometers of asphalt are no different.

Montezuma

Montezuma is a 2009 BBC Television documentary film in which Dan Snow examines the reign of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II.

Marco Étoile Filante

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...