Sahara Vertical
★ 10 · 1986 · 32m · Documentary · Adventure
The climbing couple Heinz Mariacher and Luisa Iovane abandon their usual winter training spot to go in search of places more conducive to free climbing in Algeria in the Sahara desert, more precisely in the Hoggar massif, which saw pass the cream of world climbing Lionel Terray, Roger Frison-Roche, Lucien Bérardini, Michel Vaucher, Pierre Mazeaud, Guido Monzino, Patrick Edlinger, Patrick Berhault and many others. Their objective, to climb the east face of Garet El Djenoun, 500 m high, failed because the wall was too smooth and the cracks unstable. The journey continues in the Hoggar massif towards other peaks, where they find the climbing conditions they were hoping for. An overhang in the face of Tizouyag Nord will prove to be a major challenge for Heinz Mariacher.
More Like This
Art of Freedom
2011 · ★ 9.2
The documentary film Art of Freedom answers the most poignant questions on the phenomenon of Polish expeditions to the Himalayas. Poles have reigned the highest mountaintops of the world for more than 20 years. They not only set down new trails, but new rules of behavior. They set themselves apart with an original style of climbing, endurance, conscientiousness about the overall well-being of the team - and solidarity.
More info →
Moving Over Stone
1988 · ★ 10
Writer and mountain guide Doug Robinson explains the sport of climbing, focusing on the climbing movement, with several leading climbers providing examples on challenging routes across the United States.
More info →
End of Trip, Sahara
2024
In the 1970s, groups of young Europeans ventured into the Sahara Desert with the intention of crossing it and experiencing “an adventure”. Unprepared, reckless and ignorant of the terrain they were crossing, they faced extreme situations with unexpected consequences. From the passion of these young people for adventure, the most famous rally in the world was born. “End of the Journey, Sahara” tells the story of one of these adventures.
More info →
Jurek
2014 · ★ 7.2
This documentary follows the feats of high-altitude climber Jerzy Kukuczka and his ascent to higher heights before his death in 1989.
More info →
Algérie du possible
2016 · ★ 7.5
By meeting his former comrades in combat, the film follows the journey of Yves Mathieu, anti-colonialist in Black Africa then lawyer for the FLN. When Algeria became independent, he drafted the Decrees of March on vacant property and self-management, promulgated in 1963 by Ahmed Ben Bella. Yves Mathieu's life is punctuated by his commitments in an Algeria that was then called "The Lighthouse of the Third World". The director, who is his daughter, returns to the conditions of his death in 1966.
More info →
Les Lumières de Vallot
2025 · ★ 10
Joseph Vallot, geographer, naturalist and mountaineer born in 1854 in Lodève, was a visionary man, full of humor and whose curiosity was insatiable. He had spent some forty years of his life studying the Mont Blanc massif, sacrificing a good part of his fortune to this multifaceted passion. He was notably the first to demonstrate that one could sleep, work and even do science at an altitude of over 4000 meters, at a time when ascents to the summit of Western Europe were still adventurous expeditions. This documentary tribute follows in his footsteps, via the route taken at the time, on foot from Chamonix via the Grands Mulets refuge to the summit of Mont Blanc to the Joseph Vallot observatory nestled at an altitude of 4400m, with a team of guides, journalists and scientists.
More info →
Manifesto of the 121
2011 · ★ 10
On September 5, 1960, the trial of about twenty French activists from the "Jeanson Network" began, supporters in the metropolis of the action of the Algerian FLN independence activists. But after a few days, the situation was reversed and the trial transformed into a political arena, it was the government, the army, their policy, it was the entire Algerian war whose trial began. Accused, witnesses, lawyers, overflowing a stunned court, transformed the courtroom into a tribune of the opposition. The trial coincided with the publication of the "Manifesto of the 121" on the right to insubordination, signed among others by Jean Paul Sartre, Arthur Adamov, Simone de Beauvoir, André Breton, Marguerite Duras, Pierre Boulez, René Dumont, François Chatelet…
More info →
Lulu, Climbing Route Opener
2023 · ★ 10
Lucien Abbet, better known as Lulu, is a pioneer of sport climbing and route-breaking in Valais. Although considered one of the best climbers of his generation in the field, his humility and his way of life have never been able to fit with the codes of public notoriety. Money, recognition, material goods have never interested him. He has devoted his entire life to his passion, a happy vagabond, as he likes to say: climbing and traveling.
More info →
143 Sahara Street
2021 · ★ 7
Alone in a small white house on the edge of national road 1, the Trans-Saharan road, which connects Algiers to Tamanrasset crossing the immensity of the desert, Malika, 74, one day opened her door to the director Hassen Ferhani, who came there to scout with his friend Chawki Amari, journalist at El Watan and author of the story Nationale 1 which relates his journey on this north-south axis of more than 2000 km. The Malika of Amari's novel, which Ferhani admits to having first perceived as a "literary fantasy", suddenly takes on an unsuspected human depth in this environment naturally hostile to man. She lends herself to the film project as she welcomes her clients, with an economy of gestures and words, an impression reinforced by the mystery that surrounds her and the rare elements of her biography which suggest that she is not from the region, that she left the fertile north of Algeria to settle in the desert where she lives with a dog and a cat.
More info →
Accidental Climber
2019 · ★ 5
Jim Geiger, a retired forest ranger and amateur mountaineer, attempts to become the oldest American and first great grandfather to summit Mt. Everest, aged 68. His transformation from a weekend hiker to attempting one of the most extreme and physically demanding feats known to man is driven by a desire to prove that age is just a number. What ensued, however, forever changed Jim's life.
More info →
Emilie Busquant, an Algerian passion
2015 · ★ 10
Emilie Busquant, a woman with an exceptional destiny, was born on March 3, 1901, in Neuves-Maisons, Lorraine. In 1923, she moved to Paris to find work and met Messali Hadj, who had also come seeking employment. A beautiful love story began; she fell in love with both a man and a cause: the independence of Algeria. Together, in 1926, they founded the first Algerian independence party, the North African Star (Étoile Nord-Africaine). She would support the Algerian people's struggle throughout her life.
More info →
Glimpses of Morocco and Algiers
1951 · ★ 6.5
This FitzPatrick Traveltalk short visits the cities of Casablanca, Rabat, and Marrakesh in Morocco, as well as the city of Algiers in Algeria.
More info →