North American Premiere
Pierre (writer-director Thomas Salvador) is a robotics engineer. After presenting at a sales conference in Chamonix, he calls in sick from work, buys climbing gear, and heads out into the Alps. It is a fateful, irrational turning point. Paris, work, family—these things no longer matter. The only thing that speaks to him is the mountain.
In recent years, we have seen several breathtaking climbing documentaries (Free Solo; Meru; The Summit). Like these, Salvador’s film has spectacular vistas, moments of vertiginous and claustrophobic intensity, and an obsessive protagonist, literally an outsider. But The Mountain is a reminder of how far dramatic fiction can go. A deep mystery opens up at the heart of this story, a fissure in the fabric of the real, and Salvador/Pierre plunges in after it with a zeal that will either inspire or infuriate, according to your taste for adventure. This is a simple film, but a remarkable one, that much is sure.
Cannes DF 2022 (best French film SACD)
Supported by
Thomas Salvador, Louise Bourgoin, Martine Chevallier, Laurent Poitrenaux, Andranic Manet, Sylvain Frendo
France
2022
In French with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Art of Adventure
The unbelievable adventure story of how painter Robert Bateman and ecologist Bristol Foster drove a Land Rover from Africa to Australia in 1957, developing a love of nature to last a lifetime. An inspirational love letter to the adventure of life itself.
Montreal, ma belle
In this Valentine to discovering love later in life, the ever-elegant Joan Chen plays Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese immigrant and mother in Montreal whose world is turned upside down when she meets and falls in love with a young Quebecoise.
Agatha's Almanac
Shot over six years on vibrant 16mm film, Agatha’s Almanac is an artful documentary portrait of filmmaker Amalie Atkin’s octogenarian aunt, who has fashioned herself an endearingly simple and self-sustaining lifestyle on her Manitoba farm.
The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes
A beautiful portrait of E.J. Hughes, who quietly helped reshape the artistic landscape of British Columbia in the 20th century. This extraordinary documentary explores Hughes’s legacy not only as an artist, but as a devoted, humble human being.
Credits
Producer
Julie Salvador
Screenwriter
Thomas Salvador, Naila Guiguet
Cinematography
Alexis Kavyrchine
Editor
Mathilde Muyard
Original Music
Chloé Thevenin
Director
Thomas Salvador
Thomas Salvador is a filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor in his own films. He has directed six short films that have been selected and awarded by numerous festivals, including Petits Pas (2003), which was screened at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, and De Sortie (2005), which won the 2006 Jean Vigo Prize. While hosted at the Villa Medici in Rome, he wrote his first feature film Vincent (2015), which was selected by more than 40 festivals in France and abroad. The Mountain is his second feature film.
Filmography: Vincent (2015)