Beyond the Summits

While being transferred to another prison, two convicts - Stéphane Carella and Paul Brandon - effect a miraculous escape. They are pursued across the Verdon Gorge before arriving at an isolated farmhouse whose owner, Laura, offers them sanctuary. Since the death of her husband, Laura has longed to get her own back on the police and she agrees to help Carella and Brandon in their scheme to rob a casino in Nice. After a shoot out with the casino’s owners, Carella realises that not everything is what it seems. Brandon is not what he appears...

The film shows Catherine Destivelle's trip to Dogon Country, in Mali, where she will make spectacular free solo rock climbing ascents in the sun-warmed cliffs of Bandiagara. Destivelle is accompanied on this trip by a friend climber, Lucien Abbet. A film by Pierre-Antoine Hiroz produced in 1987 by Paradoxe and also featuring Tidjani Koné, Ibrahim Dolo, and the Dogon inhabitants of the Bandiagara Escarpment. The film won the Genziana D'argento for best free climbing film at the Trento Film Festival in 1987.

This documentary follows the life and climbs of legendary alpinist Jeff Lowe, through his visionary ascents around the world up to his final dance with a terminal disease. Centered around Jeff’s most daring climb, Metanoia – solo, in winter, up the North Face of the Eiger in Switzerland — which changed his life and prepared him for the greatest adventure of all: facing his own mortality. It is a mind-bending adventure through time and space that gives physical form to Jeff's unique philosophies and inspiring creative genius.

Catherine Destivelle has deservedly become the most famous female climber in the world. She rose to prominence with historic climbs, such as the free ascent of the Nameless Tower in Pakistan, and solo winter ascents of the classic north faces of the Matterhorn and the Eiger, climbs that have never been repeated by any woman. She also made history in sport climbing by winning the world championship title. In 1997, this time in Scotland, on the iconic Old Man of Hoy route, opened by Bonington, Patey & Baillie, Martin Belderson crowned Destivelle Queen of the Rock. She was four months pregnant when she made this 137-meter ascent, which was not difficult but on tricky rock.

A fascinating chronology of 100 years of mountain film history in the Alps. This documentary focuses primarily on films shot on the Matterhorn, the Eiger, and the Grandes Jorasses, considered until the 1930s as the "last problems of the Alps," and shows the evolution of mountain filmmaking through numerous excerpts from documentaries and feature films – notably on the Matterhorn in 1901. The genre, appropriated as a means of mass exaltation by "fascist" regimes during the Second World War, was reinvented in the 1950s by Gaston Rebuffat, Marcel Ichac, and Lionel Terray in the Mont Blanc massif, avant-garde figures of French mountain cinema, who reintroduced, beyond performance, the values ​​of the mountains – and in color – poetry, humor, and sharing among people from all walks of life.

With the proliferation of private climbing gyms and the sport's inclusion in the Olympic Games, climbing, long a counter-cultural movement, is undergoing a profound transformation and facing a major paradox. On the one hand, private gyms are enjoying increasing popularity, while on the other, natural climbing sites are under serious threat. What vertical legacy will we leave to future generations? Is outdoor climbing destined to disappear? What will the future hold for climbing? Led by Cédric Lachat, a multi-award-winning Swiss climber, the film provides an international overview of this counter-culture, which has recently become a social phenomenon.

Catherine Destivelle has deservedly become the most famous female climbers in the world. In this film we see the history of her climbing career, and her latest feat in unprecedented climbing ascents. Catherine Destivelle earned her fame with historic climbs, such as the free ascent of the Nameless Tower in Pakistan, and solo winter ascents of the classic North Faces of the Matterhorn and the Eiger, climbs that have never been repeated by any woman. She also made her mark in sport-climbing as she captured the World Championship title.

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".

An employee at the French Embassy in Bangkok invites his wife to join him – and enjoy the benefits of their open marriage.

The beautiful O is taken by her boyfriend, Rene, to a bizarre retreat, where she is trained in bondage and sexual perversion...

A thirteen-year-old French girl deals with moving to a new city and school in Paris, while at the same time her parents are getting a divorce.

A coming of age story centering on the exploits of a teenage girl during summer vacation.

A former bank robber is released after 10 years in prison. He gets help from a social-worker, but gets harassed by an old cop from his past.

Chris, a sexy teenager who appears mostly bare-breasted on the French Riviera, has a crush on Romain, her mother's lover. In reaction to her inability to attract his attention, she experiments with other risque affairs.

Two thieves, Hugo Sennart and Yan Kuq, wanted by the same police inspector, cross paths by chance.

To spice up a dinner party, old friends agree to share every private message that pops up on their phones -- with disastrous results.

The film is set in a modern war, probably between a European country and a country in the Far East. Behind the battle lines, in a medical unit, a surgeon falls in love with an idealistic nurse after an initially difficult meeting.

In 1970s Germany, Léopold, a 50-year-old businessman, picks up and seduces 20-year-old Franz, who swiftly moves into his apartment. The dynamic between them intensifies with the sudden arrival of their ex-girlfriends.

For more than 15 years, two Marseille friends and criminals battle the law, rival gangs, prison authorities and even mined beaches in order to survive.

Jean-Marie Fayard is a young examining magistrate in a large provincial french city. He belongs to that generation of judges who are endeavoring to re-adapt the notion of justice to our changing times. His methods are not agreeable to every one. Criticism and pressure are brought to bear upon him but he is aware of his value, professionally, and refuses to make any concessions. He follows an unwavering course. He uses dynamic methods and takes uncustomary initiatives. He behaves like a crusader, a battler, whence the nickname given him by the reporters : the sheriff.

Jacques Darnay has served 8 years for robbing a jeweller. Now he is out of prison and looking for his loot worth 6 million francs.

In 1860s Italy, Giorgio is a young soldier is sent to a remote post, far from his lover, Clara. Lodged with the colonel, he befriends the colonel and the local doctor. Among the inhabitants are a strange young woman, both unattractive and mad; however, she's got a passion that Giorgio will have to cope with.

In July of 1976, the Societé Générale of France was robbed of well over $10 million dollars by a group burrowing through the sewers of Paris. This movie is based on a book by the thieves' mastermind, Albert Spaggiari. The famous theft won the nickname, "the great drain robbery," and this romanticized cinematic retelling of the true story stars Francis Huster as Spaggiari.

In 1984, climbing virtuoso Patrick Berhault gave a night climbing demonstration with Nico Ivaldo in Finale Ligure, Italy. This close and spontaneous connection with the audience, the silence followed by the cheers of the crowd with each move, amplified the climbers' sensations, creating a powerful feeling that gave them a state of flow. This idea of ​​climbing dance took root and culminated in the film "Star Climber," composed of parodic vignettes retracing the history of climbing through the ages. Berhault, by turns a Cro-Magnon man, a Zulu in a trance, a troubadour climber accompanied on the flute by Catherine Destivelle, a Buster Keaton trying to climb his beautiful woman's wall, as Blues Brothers, Berhault and Robert Cortijo push the dial on rock 'n' roll 10 meters above the ground solo on the facade of a building at the crossroads of West Side Story and a Terry Gilliam film.

Novelist and filmmaker Jose Giovanni turned to the remarkable true story of how his father helped him escape a date with the guillotine for this drama, which is based closely on events from his own life. During World War II, Manu (Vincent Lecoeur, as a character Giovanni modeled after himself) fought with the French Resistance, but near the end of the war he fell into a life of crime, and in 1947, 22-year-old Manu was arrested for his part in a bungled robbery that left a man dead. While Manu did not pull the fatal trigger, he refuses to say who did, since it would mean implicating his uncle, one of the few members of his family who has stood by him; Manu's brother is dead, and he turned his back on his father Joe (Bruno Cremer) years ago. Manu is sentenced to death, and while he protests his innocence, his attempts to escape from prison do little to convince anyone that he's telling the truth.

In the 1980s, Catherine Destivelle, nicknamed "Rock Queen," won several world titles in climbing competitions. In the early 1990s, weary of competitions, world championships, and the pressure of elite sport, she chose to return to the essentials: the mountains, alone and facing the challenge. In 1991, she established a new route—solo—on the west face of the Drus in 11 days. Her ascent garnered admiration, but for many, she remained primarily a rock climber. On March 9, 1992, around 5:00 a.m., she proved the skeptics wrong. After months of preparation on ice with her friend Jeff Lowe, she set off alone on the icy north face of the Eiger, and 17 hours later, she reached the summit. The mountaineering world bowed in awe; she entered the pantheon of mountaineering. Catherine Destivelle will be the first woman to have climbed the three great north faces of the Alps: the Grandes Jorasses, the Matterhorn and the Eiger – solo.