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
Let's Get Lost
One of the essential jazz films, this is an achingly tender record of jazz icon Chet Baker shortly before he died, still playing beautiful music and looking back on a life of might-have-beens. A love letter to a lost soul.
Bird
In Andrea Arnold's latest, 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) lives in a squat near the English seaside. Neglected by her chaotic father (Barry Keoghan), she pursues an adventure with a magnetic stranger named Bird (Franz Rogowski).
All We Imagine as Light
What Wong Kar-wai did for Hong Kong, Payal Kapadia does for Mumbai: the Cannes Grand Prix winner is a romantic heartbreaker about three nurses at different stages of life. It's a future classic.
Ghost Cat Anzu
When fifth grader Karin is deposited with her grandfather for the summer she takes out her unhappiness on his giant talking cat, Anzu -- who looks out for her even so. This wildly original anime riffs on Spirited Away with pleasing irreverence. Rated: PG.
Memoir of a Snail
A stellar Australian cast voice this charming and emotional animated feature by Adam Elliot, the tale of a lonely foster kid befriended by an eccentric elderly woman who turns her life around. (Not for kids!)
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)