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The Mountain film image, director Thomas Salvador

The Mountain

La Montagne

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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

Director
Cast

Thomas Salvador, Louise Bourgoin, Martine Chevallier, Laurent Poitrenaux, Andranic Manet, Sylvain Frendo

Credits
Country of Origin

France

Year

2022

Language

In French with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
18+
115 min
Award Winners Drama

Book Tickets

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Credits

Producer

Julie Salvador

Screenwriter

Thomas Salvador, Naila Guiguet

Cinematography

Alexis Kavyrchine

Editor

Mathilde Muyard

Original Music

Chloé Thevenin

Director

VIFF Logo

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)