At the cinéma

The film festival from 14 to 19 june 2022

Back to films in competition

The Last Mountain

Cinéma Vox Chamonix

CINEMA THEATER 3 (EN)

Screening on Saturday 18 June

The evening starts at 8pm

En compétition

Summary

In February 2019, Tom Ballard, 30, one of the world’s leading alpinists, disappeared with his Italian climbing partner, Daniele Nardi on Nanga Parbat in Pakistan. Known as the ‘Killer Mountain,’ Nanga Parbat is the world’s 9th highest mountain and home of violent storms and frequent avalanches. Tom and Daniele were attempting to summit via the previously unscaled Mummery Spur – a route that many leading mountaineers describe as ‘suicidal’.

History was repeating itself: in August 1995, Tom’s mother, climber Alison Hargreaves, at 33 the first woman to reach the summit of Everest alone and without oxygen, was swept to her death having just summited the world’s second highest peak, K2 – in the same Himalayan range as Nanga Parbat.

The Last Mountain is the compelling story of a family whose destiny has been intertwined with the primal urge to climb them. Risk and death were ever present, but, set against the backdrop of the world’s highest peaks, this tragic but ultimately heart-warming and life-affirming film does not tell a conventional mountaineering story: it explores grief and the pain of bereavement as well as the inspiring courage and enduring love of a family confronting tragedy – not once but twice.

Director

Christopher Terrill
With
Country

Royaume-Uni
Release date

2021
Duration

107 minutes

Bande annonce

The choice of the festival

The Englishwoman Alison Hargreaves was one of the greatest climbers of her time. A few weeks after her oxygen-free ascent of Everest in 1995, she disappeared on her way down from the summit of K2. Her husband, Jim, and two young children, Kate (4) and Tom (6), went to say goodbye to her at base camp shortly afterwards. 25 years later, Tom has become an exceptional climber and, following in his mother’s footsteps, has been climbing the north faces of the Alps. But his journey will also come to a tragic end during an attempt on Nanga Parbat in 2019. This very moving film tells the story of a family’s destiny through the voices of a father and daughter. Illustrated with numerous archive images, it allows us to remember Alison, the prodigious climber, and Tom, the young man who set out to find the memory of his mother on the most formidable walls.