Jean-Marc Boivin had chosen the natural elements as his playground. In his quest for extremes and discoveries. By turns mountaineer, skier, hang-glider, explorer, paraglider, sailor, speleologist or base-jumper, he loved constantly exploring “terra incognita” and playing with the limits of the possible. His "career" - the word is so weak - Jean-Marc, one day, agreed to tell the strongest moments to his father who recorded everything: happiness, doubts, emotions and difficulties. In this film, which won the Human Adventure Prize at the Saint Hilaire du Touvet Free Flight Film Festival, it is Jean-Marc who himself “comments” on some of his most spectacular feats. Confronted with period documents, Jean-Marc's voice-over sheds new and moving light on the extraordinary personality of a man who once admitted "having lived all his dreams"...
Sur le fil des 4000 is a documentary film by Gilles Chapaz, which traces the last rope of the mountaineering duo Patrick Berhault and Philippe Magnin. The objective of the roped party was to climb the 82 peaks over 4000 meters in the Alps, by carrying out the connecting routes on foot, on skis or by bike. All at the end of winter and the beginning of spring. They left on March 1, 2004, from Saint Christophe en Oisans. The film shows us in images this alpine adventure, from which the spirit of competition is excluded, to make way for the simple pleasure of being in the mountains. This posthumous film was edited after the disappearance of Patrick Berhault, which occurred during the expedition on April 28, 2004.
Many mountaineers as part of their activity have used cameras and films to allow us to participate through images in their adventures and their emotions. Many of them have become true film professionals: Joseph Vallot, Lionel Terray, Marcel Ichac, Renè Vernadet, Jean Afanasieff, Pierre Royer, Denis Ducroz, Kurt Diemberg and many others are among the conquerors of the image of the mountain. The film depicts the passion of these men on the highest mountains in the world... behind the lens.
Chamonix in the 1930s was a resort where a cosmopolitan, fashionable and sporting society thronged, in search of novelties and thrills found in mountaineering. These people rub shoulders with the Chamoniards but do not meet except on the trails of Mont-Blanc. The accident of Joseph, the patriarch of Servettaz, guides from generation to generation, marked the spirits. It is his son Zian who decides to take up the torch. Married to Bianca, the daughter of the wealthy Milanese industrialist who was partly responsible for her father's death, Zian lives out her great love story - a threesome - with the mountain always remaining the most demanding mistress. Tired of the agonizing expectations and loneliness during her husband's ascents, Bianca returns to Italy, Zian joins her, but society life is not his world, he returns to Chamonix. During an outing in the mountains, Zian falls into a crevasse. Bianca, alerted by a presentiment, returns to the one she loves above all...
Patrick Berhault, born July 19, 1957 in Thiers (Puy-de-Dôme), grew up by the sea between Nice and Monaco. He joined the Club Alpin Monégasque at the age of 13 and started climbing with friends at La Turbie. He left school after the second, and devoted himself to his passion for the mountains and opened these first routes in the Mercantour massif. In 1978, Patrick Berhault had his first accident in the mountains with his friend Pierre Brizzi, following the break of a ledge, they descended an 814 meter corridor at the three Dents du Pelvoux. and should only salute them to a rope of mountaineers bivouacking near the place of their fall. At the end of the 1970s, together with Patrick Edlinger, he took part in the free climbing revolution in France. In 1980, he "released" the first 7c+ in France. He also practices full soloing in a confidential manner, always in a style based on fluidity and the search for gestural aesthetics. He will share three years of climbing and mountaineering with his brother in arms Patrick Edlinger, and will live from day to day solely for their passion between climbing and intensive training. In 1980, with Jean-Marc Boivin, they took the incredible gamble of connecting the summits of Les Drus and Le Fou during the day by hang-gliding after having climbed the south face for Le Fou and the direct American for Les Drus. He will achieve in record time, and most often solo, the toughest routes in the Alps. The “Berhault style” was born, calling into question many uses hitherto based on slowness, and imposing technology. In particular, he does major routes in the Verdon, and "liberates" climbing routes marked as the first 8c in France. From 1985, while his colleagues were pushing for competition, Berhault refused competition by signing the Manifesto of 192. An admirer of Rudolf Nureyev, he developed a new discipline: “Dance-Climbing”; he has developed choreographies and gives shows, notably at the Châteauvallon festival. At the same time, he became involved in social action by participating in climbing training courses for young people in Vaulx-en-Velin, today the 40-meter artificial climbing wall in the Mas du Taureau district. , bears his name. His project of a life in the countryside as a “farmer guide” materializes in Auvergne in his native hills of Forez; He moved into a farm in the hamlet with his company and his 2 daughters. Mason, farmer or carpenter, he spends his days without mountains driving his tractor and fixing up his farm. In the early 1990s, Patrick Berhault began his return to the mountains, passed his guide diploma and trained aspiring guides at ENSA, and returned from 1992 with express ascents. He then divided his life between expeditions in the Himalayas and Latin America, ENSA in Chamonix, and the development of climbing in Auvergne. In 1996, he opposed a controversial Franco-Chinese expedition to Tibet. His last project (March-April 2004) will consist in chaining the 82 peaks over 4000 m in the Alps, in the company of Philippe Magnin. Patrick Berhault will have a fatal fall on April 28, 2004, after the 64th summit, on the snowy ridge interspersed with rocky outcrops in the Mischabels massif in Switzerland.
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