CHRISTOPHE REYLA - THE ONE-MAN BAND, WHEN THE MOUNTAINS BELIEVED IN THE BOY FROM TOULON

Some people are born with a view of Mont Blanc or into a family of mountain guides. Others chose a camera or a notebook at their first steps, while others have well-backed opportunities behind them. Christophe Réaiffe sets out from the Mediterranean coast, just like the famous Rébuffat. The peaks of the Pyrenees captured his imagination as a child, and the "Mountain Encyclopedia" became his bedside book. At 14, he became a member of the French Alpine Club and tried out the rock blocks of Fontainebleau. A three-week trek around Annapurna at age 17 held the significance of a spiritual initiation for him. This peak has a lasting presence in his life.

He studies communications and quickly makes the step into media content. A key milestone is his time in the communications department of the French equipment champion Petzl and at the helm of the most influential French specialized print media. He travels, films, creates reports and special editions, and gets acquainted with the Guérin-Paulsen publishing house. His first attempts as a documentary filmmaker date back to 2005, and since 2017 he has devoted himself entirely to producing and filming for channels such as Arte, France Télévisions, Ushuaïa TV et National Geographic. He even writes the music for his films.

Here is the translation of the text into English: His films take us across the entire geography of the planet—from the Himalayas to Patagonia, from the Urals to Antarctica, the endless Russian steppes, the Alps, and the Calanques. Dozens of films dedicated to legends of French mountaineering and guiding are associated with his name. In 2015, the phenomenal Ueli Steck stood before him and cinematographer Bertrand Delapierre—who was a guest at the Days in 2024—following his contested solo ascent of the mythical south face of Annapurna. These were followed by films about the GMHM (High Mountain Military Group), a military unit operating in the mountains, as well as several films created with travel writers, such as Sylvain Tesson and Cédric Gras, a film about Samivel — a phenomenon in alpine illustration and caricature... Shut behind the walls of his house in Chamonix in 2021, during Covid-19, he decided to create an international film festival.

See you live, December 3rd, Cinema House