FIFAD@Villars

The best of the FIFAD over three days!

Discover the programme:

• Friday 14 February at 2.00 pm - Climate conference

Screening of the film ‘Deep Climate, l'humain face au climat’ followed by a discussion on global warming and its impacts in the presence of Christian Clot.
‘Deep Climate, l'humain face au climat’, by Mélusine Mallender and Christian Clot (France),
2024, 55', VOFR-STENG, age 8 (12)
Led by Christian Clot, 10 women and 10 men embark on a series of journeys through extreme climatic environments: tropical forests, polar environments and arid deserts. The aim: to gain a better understanding of the impact of climate change and our ability to adapt. Above all, they had to learn to adapt to the key word in these extraordinary conditions: cooperation.

• Friday 14 February at 9.00pm - Screening of 3 films

"The Ice Builders"
Special Jury Prize 2024
By Francesco Clerici and Tommaso Barbaro (Italy), 2024, 15', ENG-STFR, age 8 (12)
Global warming is hitting at every latitude. In the isolated desert valley of Zanskar, the local people have always depended on the glaciers that melt in the spring to provide the water they need. Today, in an unequal battle against climate change, the Ladakhis are building artificial glaciers using whatever resources they can find.

"Haulout"
FIFAD Grand Prize 2024
By Evgenai Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev (Ukraine), 2022, 25', VO-STFR, age 12 (12)
On an isolated coast of the Siberian Arctic, in a hut battered by the winds, a solitary man waits to witness a meeting that has been taking place since time immemorial. But warming seas and rising temperatures are bringing about an unexpected change. Our loner soon finds himself overwhelmed by events. It's a big surprise...

"My brother Sotos"
Audience Award 2024
By Laszlo Nef (Switzerland), 2024, 40', VOFR-STENG, age 8 (12)
In the presence of the Nef family
This is a sibling like no other. In the Nef family, the parents sense that the youngest is different: Arsène is too big for a newborn, much too big. He suffers from an extremely rare genetic mutation known as Sotos syndrome. His sister and his two other brothers - including Tanguy Nef, a member of the Swiss ski team - don't give up, forget his difference and take Arsène to the Pyrenees. It's more than just an extraordinary adventure: it's an exemplary display of fraternal solidarity.

• Saturday 15 February at 5.30pm

"Walking on Clouds"
By Renan Vinicius K Basso (Brazil), 2022, 6' , ENG-STFR, age 8 (10)
Rafael Bridi is a tightrope walker and highliner. But he is also, and above all, an adept of why make things simple when you can make them complicated. Instead of stretching his line between two peaks firmly anchored to the mountain, our artist plans to break a world record between... two hot-air balloons. Walking on clouds: hot air ahead!

"Wild days"
By Yohan Guignard and Alex Marchesseau (France) 2024, 80', VOFR-STENG, age 10 (12)
Four high-level mountaineers, bound by a shared desire to plunge into the unknown, rope together in the depths of Alaska. They embark on an epic fifty-day, 500-km trek in total autonomy, culminating in an ascent of the two highest peaks in North America. You'll be amazed! It was enough to forge some solid friendships. But that doesn't mean there won't be moments of doubt and tension.

• Saturday 15 February at 9.00 pm

"Le dernier sommet"
By François Damilano (France), 2024, 90', VOFR-STENG, age 8 (12)
With François Damilano
At the start, in 2012, no one really took her seriously: a woman clocked up two 8'0000s in the same season. In the spring of 2023, eleven years and 22 expeditions later, the Franco-Swiss climber is packing her bag for the fearsome Nanga Parbat, nicknamed the ‘killer mountain’. With her altitude companion Sangay Sherpa, Sophie Lavaud is making history: she is THE first Swiss woman and THE first Frenchman to have climbed all 8,000 of the planet's peaks. Much more than a film in Sophie's honour - and she's well worth it! -Le dernier sommet’ is above all a look at the world through the eyes of guide-cinematographer François Damilano, who delivers a great film that immerses us in the strange daily life of very high altitude.
Sunday 16 February at 2pm - Special screenings for young people

"Free Solo Skateboarding"
By Ambroise Trauet (France) 2024, 14', VOFR, age 12 (14)
‘Free Solo’ is bound to ring a bell: it's the title of the only climbing film ever to win a Hollywood Oscar. With a guest star by the name of Alex Honnold, who is also in ‘Arctic Ascent’ (today at 8.15pm). The principle of free solo is simple: you climb a vertiginous wall... without a rope! In other words, a strictly forbidden error. What if we did the same thing on a downhill skateboard, wondered Ambroise Traouet? It's a real head turner...

"The Fingerboarder"
By Fabien Wolf (Germany), 2023, 15', VO-STFR, age 6 (10)
In his very British coat, lost in the heart of one of the most isolated villages in Graubünden, this young man is a highly original artist. He invents, designs and makes little jewels. They're very special pieces of jewellery - we'll let you in on the surprise - but they sell all over the world.

"Baluchon, 4 metres around the world"
Diable d'Or ‘exploration and adventure
By Romain Latournerie and Mathieu Alonso (France) 2023, 46', VOFR, age 8 (10)
A self-taught shipbuilder, Yann Quenet fulfilled his childhood dream by crossing the planet on a nutshell, a mini boat mischievously named ‘Baluchon’. A 4-metre sailing boat built in his garage, designed to go far, if not fast. No means of communication, no weather data, no hurry. Three years to come full circle, just for the fun of it, the time to overcome... a mountain of problems!

• Sunday 16 February at 5.30pm

"Carpenter"
Diable d'Or short film
By Xelil Sheragerd, (Kurdistan/Iran), 2023, 14', OV, little commentary, age 8 (12)
This film is a nugget. Meticulously edited, with a very subtle soundtrack and a camera that is as beautiful as it is effective, it serves one idea, and one idea alone. There's no need to translate the two or three phrases that punctuate this documentary (like ‘you'll see, you'll get used to it’). It's not quite an Iranian film, but a Kurdish one. A hard-hitting film that pays tribute to a benevolent carpenter and to the victims of the war that does not spare the mountains.

"A shepherd"
Diable d'Or ‘Nature and Environment
By Louis Hanquet, (France) 2024, 70', VOFR-STENG, age 6 (8)
Félix, a melancholy and secretive young shepherd, leads a timeless life in a mineral and inaccessible world where an invisible being prowls: the wolf. His days in the mountains are spent caring for his lambs, putting up fences and writing poetry. Not a question, not a word of comment. A precious contribution to the debate on the return of the great predator.

• Sunday 16 February at 9.00 pm

"Arctic Ascent"
Youth Prize 2024
By Richard Ladkani (USA), 2024, 90', ENG-STFR, age 10 (12)
There's no need to introduce the Mozart of climbing: with ‘Free Solo’ - the only climbing film ever to win a Hollywood Oscar and shown at the FIFAD three years ago - Alex Honnold is at the heart of a breathtaking new film: this year he takes us to Antarctica, with glaciologist Heïdi Sevestre, a familiar face at Les Diablerets, as his rope companion. It should be pointed out that Alex Honnold (who also happens to be the father of two children!) is now actively involved in bearing witness to the urgency of global warming. Mountain people are on the front line.