Pierre Maillard

Les Parois de la Mémoire – Le Pilier Central du Frêney is a 25-minute documentary film directed by Jérôme Equer in 1994 and broadcast on the FR3 weekly program Montagne. The film highlights the tragic story of the July 1961 attempt to climb the Frêney Central Pillar (on the Italian side of Mont Blanc), during which a Franco-Italian team—led notably by Pierre Mazeaud and Walter Bonatti—was trapped by a violent, multi-day storm of exceptional intensity, resulting in a tragic retreat and the deaths of four of the seven climbers. It draws on archival footage, excerpts from Lothar Brandler’s film Inferno am Montblanc, and firsthand accounts from the participants, including mountaineer and politician Pierre Mazeaud.

A former war photographer tries to ward off his personal ghosts by taking pictures of trees only. He lives alone among olive trees in southern Italy. One day he decides to cross the sea. Once in Albania, he goes near the location where he had made his last war picture, as if he was retracing his steps. He finds a tree he wants to photograph. He is just about to do so, when he discovers a runaway girl hiding in it with the sole objective of crossing the sea and getting to the other side. The man has no choice. He has to flee with her, follow her and guide her along until a storm separates them.