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RAMÓN OLASAGASTI, CÉSAR LLAGUNO, FELIPE H. NAVARRO Y PEDRO VILLAREJO
Saturday December 6 – 12:00 Euskalduna Bilbao
She was the first woman to climb all fourteen mountains over eight thousand metres high. Her name and person were forever linked by the fine thread of history, like eternal snow clinging to the rock on the great mountains. She could have been Irati or Amaia, but she is Edurne: snow, in Basque. “Everything that has a name exists”, as the saying goes, but this comic does not look to create a myth. Edurne is not a mythological creature: though capable of climbing those 14 revered altars, her essence is fragile, like the snow flower that only grows in the steep, high mountains. To escape the clutches of depression, she had to conquer the most difficult nine thousand metres of her life, a journey on which she was supported by her childhood friend, Asier Izagirre, and many others.
A rich vocabulary appears emerges from the snow, language that is proper even for summarising Edurne's career: the snowstorm that sets in, aided by passion, the frozen tears shed in the face of misfortune, the fall into the snow pit, the thawing of the bitter feelings macerated in that gloomy corner... The path travelled by Edurne was blazed by other women: Pili Ganuza, Amaia Aranzabal, Miriam García Pascual... whose footprints are captured in these pages, firm and beautiful, like the ethereal marks left by birds on the snow.
Mendi Film & Sua Edizioak comic collection:
• Everest: 1980 Basque expedition (2018)
• Iñurrategi brothers: hearts devoted to the mountains (2020)
• Andres Espinosa: solo and free (2022)
• Edurne Pasaban (2025)
RAMÓN PORTILLA
Saturday December 6 – 16:00 Euskalduna Bilbao
A beautiful story about love, life, and passion for the mountains: Renato, a visionary solo climber, as tough and cold as the rocks and ice he climbed, broke all the moulds, taking mountaineering to unimaginable levels where ethics, commitment and physical and mental endurance push the limits of human possibility. Goretta, the tireless narrator of this story, spends most of her time at base camp, showing us the sometimes equally harsh reality of the insecurities and fears of those waiting at the foot of the wall. Inseparable, the couple leave behind a shared legacy that we are now recovering for the first time in Spanish.
OSCAR GOGORZA
Sunday December 7 – 16:00 Euskalduna Bilbao
What does a mountaineer aspire to? Montaña travels back in time to dissect the origins of a kind of conquering ambition and dreams in the form of challenges: from the pioneers on Mont Blanc to the vanguard of alpine style in the Himalayas; from Saussure's scientific curiosity to Steve House's search for ethical and aesthetic perfection; the supposed 'madness' of the 'soloists' Paul Preuss and Alex Honnold with a century between them; the “eight-thousanders”, once synonymous with epic feats and difficulty, are now a destination for tourists; and women such as Lynn Hill and Wanda Rutkiewicz continue to exemplify the bumpy road to equality in a vertical world riddled with contradictions and even cheats doped up on lies. Each generation improves on the previous one in terms of speed, training and new tools. But death, and the game of escaping it, remains to be the common thread that tarnishes the legitimate desire to push oneself to the limit in order to conquer... the useless?
SEB MONTAZ
Monday december 8 – 12:00 Euskalduna Bilbao
This year the International Alliance for Mountain Film decided to award the Grand Prize to Sébastien Montaz-Rosset, a director who has grown in the world of mountain images by interpreting the possibilities offered by new media. His first direction was the ‘Summits of my Life’ series with Kilian Jornet, with whom he then created many projects. Since then, he has recounted the adventures of the greatest athletes of many of the most recent extreme mountain sports, such as high-line, skydiving, wingsuit flying, without neglecting skiing and Himalayan mountaineering.
His cinema is made by instinct, born without a script, collecting images based on the emotions of the moment, to then identify the most captivating elements around which to grow the story. In this phase, the professional collaboration with his wife Davina Beyloos, producer and often co-director of the films, plays a fundamental role. A cinema that has won Montaz-Rosset Studio several awards, also in the festivals of the International Alliance for Mountain Film. Mendi Film awards: Best Mountaineering Film and Best Director for ‘De L’ombre à la Lumière’ (2022), and Special Jury Mention for ‘Out of The Blue’ (2022).
ANTOINE LE MÉNESTREL
Monday December 8 – 19:00 Euskalduna Bilbao
Antoine Le Ménestrel was one of the prodigies who invented free climbing in the 1980s. He took climbing to new heights, combining the search for challenge with creativity. He is the living memory of a movement that inspires millions of young people to take up climbing today. In ‘Folambule’, he recounts with moving sincerity how his exploration of movement on the cliffs went hand in hand with his inner torments. His unique vertical trajectory led him to artistic creation. Today, he is a choreographer and dancer with the Lézards Bleus company, which creates dance-climbing shows.
JEAN-MICHEL JORDÁ
Thursday December 11 – 16:00 Euskalduna Bilbao
Jean-Michel Jordá is a mountaineer and filmmaker. His film ‘Everest Green’ received the Award for Best Mountaineering Film in 2018 in the Mendi Film festival. In 2023, he premiered ‘Everest Invaders: asalto a la papelera más alta del mundo’, in Bilbao. "I could have been a vagabond. Cinema, beauty, art, the mountains, the wind, the sea, reflection, some wonderful encounters, and Phi, made me a troubadour".
JANIRE ETXABE, TOTI MARTÍNEZ DE LEZEA, ELI AZURMENDI, JUANTXO ZEBERIO
Friday December 12 – 16:00 Euskalduna Bilbao
Geure(R)a is a book that transforms vertical dance into sound, images & words. Originating in Janire Etxabe's stage work with Harrobi Dantza Bertikala, it pays tribute to the women burned at the stake during the witch hunts, rooted in Basque memory and culture. It is Illustrated by Eli Azurmendi and accompanied by poetic prose crafted by Toti Martínez de Lezea, with music by Juantxo Zeberio. This combined work offers a dynamic, evocative, powerful and poetic artistic experience that celebrates the resilience and transformative power of women.
CATHERINE DESTIVELLE
Friday december 8 – 19:45 Euskalduna Bilbao
Climber, mountaineer, writer, editor and conference speaker. Catherine Destivelle probably never imagined where her first steps climbing the boulders of Fontainebleau, where her parents took her to play as a child, would lead her. At 16, she was already climbing in the Verdon. Her victory in the first world climbing championship in Bardonechia (1985) propelled her into the professional world. Then came the leap into mountaineering: the first solo female winter ascent of the north face of the Eiger, the first absolute repeat of the Bonatti route on the north face of the Matterhorn, the Trango Tower, the ascent of the south-west face of Shisha Pangma... all of which forged her path. In 2020 she was awarded the Piolet d'Or for her career.
She founded the publishing house Les éditions du Mont-Blanc with the aim of transforming the mountain itself into an educational tool. The books she publishes reveal incredible mountaineering stories and share a love of the mountains. “My goal is to build a bridge between cultural history, sporting heritage and the ecological and scientific concerns of the times we live in”, she says. Her publishing team is deliberately made up entirely of women.
WOP Mendi Film Award winners:
• Basque and Navarre Mountaineering Federations (2024)
• Edurne Pasaban (2023)
• Eduardo Martínez de Pisón (2022)
• Sebastián Álvaro (2021)
• Baltistán Fundazioa Foundation (2020)
• Nives Meroi and Romano Benet (2019)
• Juanjo San Sebastián (2018)
• Peter Habeler (2017)
• Sir Chris Bonington (2016)
• Josep Manuel Anglada (2015)
• Drawn film by Jeremy Collins (2014)
Saturday December 13 – 16:00 Euskalduna Bilbao
Laboratorio Donne is an independent and open working group dedicated to research, debate, and growth on issues of gender equality in the world of mountaineering. Founded by Riccarda de Eccher, mountaineer and artist, and Elena Goatelli, documentary film director, and with the collaboration of the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Trento.
9B+ / Feminine plural
Climbing is one of the few sports, if not the only one, in which women and men have achieved the same results. This event aims to highlight the importance of feeling represented and to analyse, with the help of the guests, the challenges, and risks of moving in a world designed by and for men.
Speakers:
Riccarda de Eccher, mountaineer and artist
Elena Goatelli, filmmaker
Irati Zabala Mujika, climber and director of the climbing section of the Basque mountain federation
Lucía Guichot, mountaineer
Nieves Gil, mountaineer
Lara Izagirre, filmmaker and producer
Sunday December 14 – 12:00 Euskalduna Bilbao
LLucía Guichot and Nieves Gil, rope teammates since joining the Spanish FEDM Mountaineering Team in 2018, will tell us about their careers as mountaineers and, more specifically, their latest ascent of the ‘Eternal Flame’ route in the Trango Towers, in Pakistan’s Karakorum. In August 2024, they climbed this legendary 800m 7c+ A2 M6 route, opened in 1989 by the Germans Kurt Albert, Wolfgang Güllich, Christof Stiegler and Milan Sykora. The route is rated as one of the most beautiful and difficult at high altitude in the world at its 6,250 metres and takes its name from a beautiful song by The Bangles.
Nieves and Lucía live in the Aragonese Pyrenees and work in nature (a forest ranger and a mountain guide). Whenever possible, they maintain their commitment to undertake one expedition per year, which has led them to explore different mountain ranges around the world: Patagonia, Nepal, India, Pakistan, and Peru.
MIKEL ZABALZA
Sunday December 14 – 12:00 Euskalduna Bilbao
Mikel Zabalza has always loved winter. He started climbing in the Pyrenees, in the Cirque de Gavarnie, where he has scaled ethereal ice routes. He has skied, travelled to the Himalayas, where he has opened new routes on giant rocks far away from the beaten paths, and advanced across the ice of Antarctica, with the wind as an ally while he pulled a sledge. Through his story, we become part of his rope team and travel to the Alps and Patagonia, to the great walls of the world, where we sleep suspended at altitudes where cold, wind and snow reign supreme: Integral de Peu Terey, Trango, Piergiorgio, Kanchenjunga, Dunagiri, Queen Maud Land, Everest and K2, the Abruzzi Spur, Gasherbrum II and IV, the Broads traverse, Nuptse, South Tower of Paiju Peak, Phurbi Chyach... and, always, the Pyrenees.
