Gasherbrum IV - Mountain of Light

Ra [also known as The Ra Expeditions] is a 1972 documentary film directed by Lennart Ehrenborg and Thor Heyerdahl about the expeditions organised by Thor Heyerdahl in 1969 and 1970 in attempt to cross the Atlantic on papyrus boats. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Les Parois de la Mémoire – Le Pilier Central du Frêney is a 25-minute documentary film directed by Jérôme Equer in 1994 and broadcast on the FR3 weekly program Montagne. The film highlights the tragic story of the July 1961 attempt to climb the Frêney Central Pillar (on the Italian side of Mont Blanc), during which a Franco-Italian team—led notably by Pierre Mazeaud and Walter Bonatti—was trapped by a violent, multi-day storm of exceptional intensity, resulting in a tragic retreat and the deaths of four of the seven climbers. It draws on archival footage, excerpts from Lothar Brandler’s film Inferno am Montblanc, and firsthand accounts from the participants, including mountaineer and politician Pierre Mazeaud.

From Trento to Chamonix, via Zermatt; from the Morgiou cove to the Eiger's north face; from Planica to the Lavaredo peaks, the Alps are depicted, illustrated, and magnified in all their unique and sublime beauty, through the sports practiced there and the most typical customs and traditions of their inhabitants. A helicopter rescue and a parachute jump from the Red Wall by Wolfgang Weizenbocks are experiences not to be missed.

On July 11, 1961, a rope team of seven men—led by the Italian Walter Bonatti and the Frenchman Pierre Mazeaud—set out to scale the Frêney Pillar on the south face of Mont Blanc. After days of grueling effort—and just as they were nearing their goal—they were trapped by a violent storm. Stranded at an altitude of over 4,500 meters in temperatures of minus 20 degrees, the seven climbers were forced to bivouac in hellish conditions. Exhausted, spent, and with one of their number injured, they displayed extraordinary solidarity, exemplary courage, and a determination that commands respect right to the very end. Yet the mountain proved cruel. Lost in fog, blinded by the darkness, and gripped by the cold, four of the seven climbers perished from exhaustion after a perilous five-day, five-night ordeal in hell. Only three made it down alive, including the Italian Walter Bonatti and the Frenchman Pierre Mazeaud.

In 1961 the southern face of the Central Pillar of Mont Blanc was still unclimbed. Two roped parties of climbers decided to come together to attempt to open a new route. Four days of violent storms caught the climbers just 80 metres from the summit. Of the seven climbers, only three returned home. One of the most intense and dramatic events in the history of climbing relives on the big screen, thanks to accounts and images of the feat.

After the successful conquest of Everest in 1953, two Italians reach the summit of K2, the second highest mountain in the world, the next year,after careful preparation and the formation of the team of climbers, scientists, and porters.

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.

K2 Chasing Shadows chronicles Benjamin Védrines' record-breaking 2024 ascent of K2 (8,611m) in 10 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds, without supplemental oxygen: a story that unfolds as much in the mind as on the mountain. In human exploration, each boundary pushed awakens a new thirst. Each feat paves the way for a deeper quest. It is this tension between extreme performance and inner aspiration that drives K2 Chasing Shadows. For Benjamin Védrines, it is a journey of humility, resilience, and a search for meaning amidst the raw beauty of the Pakistani Karakoram. The film exposes the physical demands of a formidable summit, while also exploring fear, loss, and the perilous nature of dreams that demand total commitment. Between unforeseen obstacles, forced retreats and new attempts, Védrines faces the most trying and exhilarating aspects of mountaineering, constantly questioning where true accomplishment lies.

Explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his ten-man crew sailed their reed boat, the Tigris, over routes he believes were followed by Sumerian traders 5,000 years ago. The film goes beyond science to focus on the man, Heyerdahl, in an effort to explain what motivates him to risk his life in the search for knowledge.

Giusto Gervasutti (1909-1946) was an Italian mountaineer, considered by many to be the best mountaineer of his generation and one of the greatest of the post-war era. He achieved his first feats in 1930 and revolutionized mountaineering in the Western Alps by repeating and opening routes of extreme difficulty that are still considered absolute routes today: the east face of the Grandes Jorasses (with his friend Boccalatte), the northeast spur of the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey, the north face of the Grandes Jorasses, the Gervasutti route on the Gugliermina, the east face of Mont Blanc du Tacul (where he died in 1946), among an incredible list of climbs. The film, made to mark the centenary of Giusto Gervasutti's birth, portrays a solitary and tormented mountaineer, endowed with an impeccable moral sense, an advocate of light and ethical mountaineering, always in search of an unattainable happiness.

Re-enactment of the attempt made in July 1961 by a french-italian group in order to climb Freney Pillar, in Mont Blanc massif. The expedition was composed by the frenchmen Pierre Mazaud, Robert Guillaume, Pierre Kohlmann and Antoine Vieille and by the italians Walter Bonatti, Andrea Oggioni e Roberto Gallieni. The groups arrived separatly to the camp of Col de la Fourche, but with the same aim. They united by chance to conquest the famous peak. The attempt is crushed by bad wheather and, during the descent, three French and an Italian will die.

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.”

In 1971, American Norman Dyhrenfurth led an expedition of 30 climbers from 13 different countries, including Don Whillans, Dougal Haston, Naomi Uemura, Pierre Mazeaud, Michel Vaucher, and others. This expedition aimed to simultaneously climb the southwest face and the direct west ridge. During the ascent, Indian climber Harsh Vardhan Bahuguna perished at Camp 3 in a storm. The expedition, already suffering from organizational problems, was severely tested after his death. The Americans decided, unilaterally, to abandon the west ridge. The Europeans, who had spent days equipping the route, were left out and felt relegated to the roles of route setters and porters. Frenchman Pierre Mazeaud, Swiss climbers Michel and Yvette Vaucher, and Italian Carlo Mauri then left the expedition. The Americans continued their ascent of the southwest face up to 8,350 meters before giving up.