For nearly three years, director Dina Khreino interviewed world-class mountain climbing athletes, listening to what compels them to leave behind families, friends, and everyday comforts to risk everything for a fleeting glimpse into the unknown. What she found was a tribe, a diverse group of professional adventurers and amateur philosophers forged by the ultimate test of body, mind, and spirit. In the face of shifting winds, sheer granite cliffs, and impossible odds, they climb. Each for their own reason, but every one connected by the vertical world. In this rarefied air, these athletes are fundamentally changed, not just as climbers, but as human beings.
Every climbing reward comes at the cost of a potential risk, but when you are a climbing pioneer, driven by the unknown and unexpected, you are willing to risk whatever it takes for the chance to find the perfect first ascent line. This is a story of exploration and discovery, a journey of friendship and solitude, a quest to fuel an obsessive passion. Starring Paul Robinson, Jimmy Webb, Daniel Woods, Chris Sharma and Niky Ceria.
Discreet legend of Fontainebleau, Charles Albert, nicknamed Mowgli, continues to push the limits with his barefoot block creations. Climbing without slippers forces him to find original methods, to compensate with the strength of his arms and fingers. "Climbing is not just about a grade", he explains, "We have the possibility of doing what we want, climbing blindfolded, barefoot... All while seeking fluidity in our movements. The only limit to creating new challenges is your imagination.” He very rarely appears in the specialized media, has not made the Olympics or even major international competitions. Yet he is one of the best bouldering climbers in the world. For the record, in January 2019, he was the second in the world to offer a 9a rating for his long-standing project "No Kpotes Only". A year later, his boulder will be downgraded to 8c/+, still remaining one of the most extreme passages on the planet.
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.
Horia Colibasanu is a dentist, father of two boys and elite climber. In 2008, he refused to abandon, at 7400 meters on the Annapurna, his sick companion, the Basque mountaineer Iñaki Ochoa de Olza, implanted his own life in danger. His action dazzled the climbing community. Despite this tragic incident, he continued to climb in pure alpine style, without supplemental oxygen. In 2017, the 40-year-old Romanian athlete will return to Everest, after two unsuccessful attempts. For the first time, Horia is attempting a solo ascent.
French powerhouse climber Mélissa Le Nevé tries to become the first woman to traverse Action Directe, one of the most revered and challenging routes in the sport.
Three new films featuring the biggest climbing and adventure stories of the year: ADN - SEB BOUIN: 29-year-old French sport climber Seb Bouin quietly climbed the elite ranks, culminating in his attempt to establish a long slope in a cave overhang in the Gorges du Verdon in France / CLIMBING RESISTANCE: In the hills torn by the Palestinian conflict, young Palestinians embrace rock climbing as a necessary respite from the oppression of the occupation Israeli. American writer and climber Andrew Bisharat visits the West Bank to explore his own roots and the power of climbing to transcend existence / BURNING THR FLAME: Big wall free climbing masters Babsi and Jacopo seek their most Biggest challenge so far: a free ascent of "Eternal Flame", a 3,000 foot route on the legendary Nameless Tower in Pakistan's Karakoram Range.
In a vertiginous sequence, Claude Lelouch's camera follows Patrick Edlinger climbing with his bare hands one of the routes of the spectacular Cimaï cliff. The action takes place in the Consensus voice (7c+/8a+) at the Cimaï quarry. In a place large enough where Claude Lelouch had been able to take out his crane to make a vertical trip. Later, in 2013, the foot of the Consensus route will experience landslides, the climbing sector has since been prohibited by municipal decree, huge blocks threatening to fall.
Walter Bonatti is THE mountaineering legend, capable of meeting the great challenges of mountaineering: K2, Drus, G4, Matterhorn, to name a few. But the summits reached are not points of arrival, they are intermediate stages which then push him on a journey around the world, in search of himself. His exploration, starting from the vertical walls, then moved towards horizontal paths and was always expressed towards the interior space where our fears and our desires reside. Where the man, sitting alone in front of himself, must decide to surpass himself or to adapt. And Walter never complied with them, he wrote his own rules and followed them all his life, allowing himself no loopholes or shortcuts. He built himself as a mountaineer, as an explorer, as a photojournalist and as a writer, but always and only with the intention of being an uncompromising man with his hands, his muscles, his heart and his head.
Directed by Jean-Marc Boivin in 1977, Glace Extrême is a documentary about mountaineering and extreme skiing at the Aiguille Verte and the Grand Pilier D'angle in the Mont-Blanc massif chain in France, with the legends of mountaineering Jean-Marc Boivin, Patrick Gabarrou and ski champion Patrick Vallencant. It was broadcast in the Carnet de L'Aventure on France 2 in 1980.
Introducing the famous French Spider-Man, Alain Robert, in his home in Bali to reminisce over his past feats, mapping the mind of a world-class daredevil. In our interview with Alain, we touch on both the high points and the low points of his career, including the numerous incidents he's had over the years and what it takes for him to return to a sport that has nearly taken his life so many times.
It was a sporting feat, a national feat, but also and above all a technical feat: on October 15, 1978, three French mountaineers, for the first time, reached the summit of Everest: Pierre Mazeaud, Nicolas Jaeger, Jean Afanassieff, accompanied by Kurt Diemberger, Austrian mountaineer and cameraman A performance broadcast live on the radio thanks to the France inter teams and filmed for television by TF1. Christian Brincourt, a great French reporter, tells us about this expedition and questions the members of the expedition on their motivations. With Pierre Mazeaud (expedition leader), Jean-François Mazeaud (doctor), Claude Deck, Raymond Despiau, Nicolas Jaeger, Walter Cecchinel, Jean Afanassieff, Kurt Diemberger.
Georges Livanos. A name that hardly evokes anything, or not much, even in the heart of Chamonix, the Mecca of mountaineering. And yet, the one nicknamed “the Greek” in the 1950s, because of his paternal ancestry, was undoubtedly one of the most important French mountaineers of his time. High mountain guide, Yann Borgnet, is also passionate about the history of mountaineering. “The Greek” is one of the “old ones” who particularly marked him. Yann wants to follow in Georges’ footsteps. So the young guide imagines an alpine journey, designed to visit the great routes opened by Livanos. A dive into the heart of an immense vertical heritage, to meet a great, almost forgotten, figure of mountaineering and his heritage.
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.
In 1984 Ron Fawcett, is one of the most athletic climbers, he takes pleasure in taking up the challenge of climbing "free" without artificial aids, the equipment and rope being used only for safety, a revolution at the time. The documentary is part of "Pushing The Limits", a 10-episode series by Leo Dickinson documenting sporting adventures that push the limits of human endurance. Each episode focused on an extreme sport, ranging from rock climbing to hot air ballooning.
"La Vie au Bout des Doigts" is a documentary film by Jean-Paul Janssen released in 1982, directing Patrick Edlinger totally living his passion, climbing, which he practices here solo ("with bare hands"), it that is, without a rope or any kind of insurance. The film begins with a session of solo sea crossings on the Piade site near Toulon. In the second part, Patrick Edlinger trains in Buoux before carving a solo route in this now famous climbing site. This mythical film in more than one way is considered the first climbing film, that is to say where climbing is an activity in itself and not a means of preparing for mountaineering. His media success was such that he propelled Patrick Edlinger to the rank of world star, and above all he made climbing known to the general public, and was even nominated for the César for best documentary short film.
