Art of Freedom

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.

Marcel is on the eve of his 95th birthday. He trained his two sons, Claude and Yves, in the world of climbing where they are key figures. When old age came, a climbing buff, Marcel could not give up his passion. He then begins a final procession towards his last Mirror at the age of 94, accompanied by his sons. The northwest wall of the famous 450-meter Argentine Mirror (canton of Vaud, Switzerland) is the scene of Marcel's adventure, at the height of his art, a feat and a beautiful family story.

“Getting to the top matters,” or so says veteran alpinist Mark Richey as he prepares to climb Saser Kangri II, at 7,518 meters the world’s second highest unclimbed mountain. In “The Old Breed”, co- director and climber Freddie Wilkinson takes the audience with him on a journey to the heart of one of the last unexplored patches of mountain wilderness: the war-inflicted eastern Karakoram range. As Richey and Steve Swenson, both in their 50s, push the limits of physical health and will power to be the first to claim this final summit, a gripping psychological thriller unfolds.

On some peaks in 2003, the statistics are impressive. For the K2 dubbed "wild mountain" or "ruthless mountain", only 240 reached the summit and more than 60 perished in the ascent. An unimaginable rate of one death in four to survive. And these statistics are even worse At the start of the 2004 climbing season, only five talented and determined women had reached the 8,616-meter summit of K2, but only two made it out alive. , they too perished while climbing other peaks of 8000 meters, these five women all disappeared in the mountains.

High and Hallowed: Everest 1963 is the deepest story of the greatest Himalayan climb in American mountaineering history. Showcasing the daring and visionary efforts of the 1963 American Mount Everest Expedition, the film examines the sheer commitment, step-by-step struggle and lasting impact of America's first ascent of Mount Everest and the pioneering first ascent of West Ridge by Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld. Five decades later, High and Hallowed returns to Everest to find out if the essence of risk, adventure and the unknown that drew the first Americans to the summit still exists on Everest today.

We followed Said Belhaj when he showed his good friend Dani Andrada around on the Swedish west coast for ten days. They climbed some of the old classic routes and also tried some of the projects the area has to offer. We tried our best to capture the spirit, surroundings and the atmosphere around their visit here.

Six blind Tibetan teenagers climb the Lhakpa-Ri peak of Mount Everest, led by seven-summit blind mountain-climber Erik Weihenmayer.

Ueli Steck (Switzerland), Simone Moro (Italy) and Jon Griffith (GB) are not like 95% of the climbers on Everest: they don't use oxygen, altimeters (improperly called Sherpas), or fixed ropes. In 2013, the trio aims to repeat the arduous Western Spur. The Sherpas have the mission to equip the mountain with fixed ropes on this famous day, up to Camp 3: ropes without which customers of commercial expeditions could not climb Everest. An argument ensued, insults were hurled from both sides. The confrontation at Camp 2 degenerated: a Sherpa water bottle physically attacked the trio of Europeans. Blows and stones were thrown and threats led the trio to flee the mountain. The Réel Rock film crew, which is part of the climbing team, films this chaos without complacency.