À l'Assaut de la Tour Eiffel
Four experienced mountaineers climb the three floors of the Eiffel Tower through the pillars of the building. A police officer, overwhelmed by the events, does not succeed in arresting the intrepid who reach the summit with agility under the stunned eyes of tourists. They then abseil and happily throw themselves into the Seine to celebrate the feat.
Autour d'un film de montagne
Making of the cinematographic shooting of "Premier de cordée" directed by Louis Daquin in the Mont-Blanc massif. In 1943. Alain Pol films the risky adventure of filming in the high mountains with a team of seventy people. The images of the making-of reveal the technical constraints encountered by the actors and technicians: falling rocks, crossing glaciers and long approach walks at altitude to the filming locations. Six actors and technicians will also be injured and the main role - that of Pierre - will be reassigned to André Le Gall following a bad fall by Roger Pigaut.
The Call Of The Peaks
L'Appel Des Cimes, directed by Alain Pol, is a documentary commissioned by the CAF and the various French ministries on the practice of post-war mountaineering. In 1946, climbers trained at the Fontainebleau Climbing School. Guy Poulet and Jacques Poincenot try to climb the Aiguilles de Chamonix but fail during the climbing phase. After a night in a refuge with Denise Rouzeau and the guide Pierre Allain, the mountaineers make a new attempt. Successful demonstration for those who continued the approach walk then the passage of the seracs of the glacier. On the rock, the roped party crosses a chimney and a crack to reach the summit and abseil down. Led by high mountain scouts, Guy and Jacques rediscover the glaciers and needles of the Mont-Blanc massif during the next lesson.
Mountain Man
The mountain guide Jakob is a controversial figure. His supposed father dies and leaves behind a great heritage to the people. In the town they consider Jakob a bastard, because his parents were not married, which means that without a testament, the lands in which he lives do not belong to him. But the testament indicates that the inheritance corresponds him under a single condition, he must be the first person to climb the east face of Monte Verità. French version of Die weisse majestat, shot the year before in German with the same script in the Eiger/Jungfrau region but with different actors and by a different director.
Three Lives and a Rope
The idea is a simple one: three alpinists climb in the Mont Blanc Massif. This situation brings one face to face with the dangers of the mountain: avalanches, crevasses, fog, the climbing of the rocks, roping up, etc. All of this is magnified, transcended by a remarkable and strong use of the language of cinema. One of the first films about high mountains with Roger Frison-Roche and magnificent music by Maurice Jaubert
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.
Daredevils of the Alps
Marcel Ichac accompanied the mountaineer Armand Charlet, in 1943, in the repetition of the first crossing of the Aiguilles du Diable that the guide of the Chamonix valley had made in 1925. A roped party joined on snow and ice the Col du Géant, reached at the Mont-Blanc-du-Tacul stop and on the Col du Diable. The men cross the needles by climbing chimneys, cracks and abseiling walls. They access the eastern slope of the Mont-Blanc massif which offers a panorama of the Grandes Jorasses and Mont-Blanc. Armand Charlet was the first to reach the summits of four needles above 4000 meters: the Devil's Horn, Pointe Chaubert, Pointe Médiane and Pointe Carmen; he also tells how he successfully climbed the furthest, the Isolated. Marcel Ichac shot these scenes as close as possible to his subject, he responded with this film with a “truth” cinema, the principle of which we find in his later productions.
La Meije
La Meije is a documentary about alpinism that takes place in La Meije. It was directed by Alain Pol in 1947 and produced by Toni-Films.
30 Jours au-dessus des nuages
In 1941, under the Vichy regime, during the Nazi occupation, a team of six people crossed the Mont-Blanc massif. Leaving the Arve Valley with a month of supplies, five young men and a woman attempt a raid to show that France has passion and love for the effort and to celebrate youth, teamwork, leadership, tradition and achievement. The team advances roped, above the clouds. They pass the different passages, glaciers and needles, sleeping in tent under the stars at minus 20°C, facing the storms and the dangers represented by crevasses. Among others, they climb the Aiguille Verte, the Aiguille du Grépon and Mont Blanc.
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.
Karakoram
Account of the first French expedition to the Himalayas, which attempted to climb the hidden peak (Gasherbrum I) in 1936, from the preparations for the trip to the end of the ascent. After a long approach walk through quasi-desert regions, then on a huge glacier, the caravan of 700 porters arrives at the foot of Hidden Peak. The expedition was led by Henry de Ségogne, with Jean Charignon, Pierre Allain, Raymond Leininger, Jean Carle, Jean Deudon, Louis Neltner, Jacques Azémar, doctor Jeand Arlaud and director Marcel Ichac. Weather conditions, logistical problems and a strike among Sherpas forced the team to retire at 6900m on the south face. The film received the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1938.
Rêve éternel
The legend says that the summit of Mont Blanc is covered in gold. This ancestral belief has obsessed Jacques Balmat, a mountain guide, from his childhood. Now only he believes in the legend, and is the laughingstock of the villagers. Determined to prove that he is right, he takes advantage of the interest of the Swiss naturalist and physicist Horace Benedict de Saussure, who promises a reward of a thousand pieces of gold for the first who reaches the summit. The determination of Jacques Balmat will overcome the numerous obstacles that will arise during the ascent. French version of the film 'Der Konig vom Mont Blanc', in which the second-tier actors are different.
Flammes De Pierres
"Flammes de Pierre" is the first documentary made by Gaston Rébuffat himself in 1947. It depicts Rébuffat in full ascent of the Flammes De Pierre, wild ridges in the heart of the Mont Blanc massif overlooking Chamonix. Like Roger Frison-Roche, Walter Bonatti, René Desmaison or Giusto Gervasutti, Gaston Rébuffat has written and filmed the great pages of contemporary mountaineering but above all, he knew how to talk about it with enough poetry so that it is not simply airtight race stories for spectators. Stories that have been triggers for many readers, who have come to know “stone flames” thanks to him.
Return to Mont Aiguille
In 1492, Captain Antoine de Ville reached the summit of Mont Aiguille. At the time, there were no climbing shoes, no harnesses, no quickdraws! Historian Stéphane Gal, accompanied by director Ludovic Veltz, sets out to (re)conquer this inaccessible mountain using the weapons and methods of yesteryear.
Le Mistral
Documentary short in color produced by SNCF, French national railway, providing a travelogue of a journey from Paris to Nice aboard their flagship train, Le Mistral. Directed by André Périé, music by Georges van Parys (who is featured in the film).
Six mois pour apprendre le français
Can you learn French in six months? We followed people from all over the world, including Ukraine, China, and Iran, who attempted to do just that in a French immersion program at Cégep du Vieux Montréal. We delve into their learning journey, their daily lives, and the unique stories that led them to rebuild their lives in Quebec.
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.
Peaks
Cimes is a drama about alpinism that takes place in Mont Pelvoux. It was directed by Jean Vernet in 1941 and produced by Films de Cavaignac. It features Hélène Mora and Robert Streitz.
Jeunes Montagnards
Jeunes Montagnards is a documentary about alpinism that takes place on the Aiguilles Du Diable. It was produced in 1945.
The Aiguille Verte
The ascent of the Aiguille Verte in the Mont Blanc Massif by the ridge of the Moine. Two climbers, the mountain, and the rope. No plot, no tragedy, but the lives of the two protagonists during the hours they are struggling. A film produced by the Comité de l'Expédition Française à l'Himalaya and made by Samivel and Marcel Ichac to test the film material destined to a future expedition in the Himalayas (the 1936 French expedition to Hidden Peak in the Karakorum). It is also an opportunity to show the beauty of the mountain at different moments of the day, the ascent of climbers roped, and the techniques and dangers of mountain climbing.