Jean-Marc Boivin

Jean-Marc Boivin had chosen the natural elements as his playground. In his quest for extremes and discoveries. By turns mountaineer, skier, hang-glider, explorer, paraglider, sailor, speleologist or base-jumper, he loved constantly exploring “terra incognita” and playing with the limits of the possible. His "career" - the word is so weak - Jean-Marc, one day, agreed to tell the strongest moments to his father who recorded everything: happiness, doubts, emotions and difficulties. In this film, which won the Human Adventure Prize at the Saint Hilaire du Touvet Free Flight Film Festival, it is Jean-Marc who himself “comments” on some of his most spectacular feats. Confronted with period documents, Jean-Marc's voice-over sheds new and moving light on the extraordinary personality of a man who once admitted "having lived all his dreams"...

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"The Climbers" is a six-part documentary series tracing the history of mountaineering. Directed by Chris Bonington and Richard Else, it was produced by the BBC and broadcast in 1992. The series recounts the evolution of mountaineering and the traditions of climbers in Great Britain and on the European continent: the former developed a free climbing technique, while the latter used aids such as keys, pitons, and drills to ascend otherwise inaccessible routes. The program includes archive footage of the pioneers of the sport, from the emergence of free climbing as a distinct discipline in the late 1970s and 1980s to the advent of competitions.

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The Mer de Glace in Chamonix, November 86: every summer the meltwater that runs on the surface of the glacier flows into a huge crevasse called "a mill". In 1897, Joseph VALLOT had explored it to a depth of 60m, a lake had prevented him from going any further. Since then no one had descended into this well. In the fall, a multidisciplinary team made up of mountaineers including Jean Marc BOIVIN, speleologists and scientists descending into the crevasse... Superb images and live comments in a temperature of 0° and a humidity of 100%. The team reached 110m deep under the ice, a world first in glacier exploration. Jean marc BOIVIN seems delighted with his first speleological exploration. With the participation of Serge AVIOTTE, Jean Michel ASSELIN, Jean Marc BOIVIN, Janot LAMBERTON, Pierrot PILLET, Louis REYNAUD, Jean Luc RIGAUD and Denis TERMIER.

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“The Conquerors of the Impossible: Group Portrait” is a documentary on free climbing which takes place in the Verdon Gorges and Toulon. It was directed by Bernard Dumont in 1986 and produced by Les Films du Soleil. It is part of the series The Conquerors of the Impossible (3-3). There we find Patrick Berhault, Patrick Edlinger, Eric Escoffier, Christophe Profit, Laurent Chevallier, Jean-Paul Janssen and other pioneers of free climbing.

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A team of 12 men, 5 sailors, a doctor, a writer, a film crew, and 3 mountaineers, Jean-Marc Boivin, Thierry Leroy, and Dominique Marchal, set off by sailboat from Mar del Plata in Argentina to reach Riso Patron in Chile, via the Strait of Magellan, the Patagonian Channels, and Falcon Fjord. Their goal is to climb Riso Patron and then make the first crossing of the Campo de Hielo Sur glacier, or Hielo Continental Patagónico, to meet up with the sailors in Puerto Williams on Navarino Island in Chile, a village at the end of the world. After three attempts and an accident for Leroy, who was repatriated, they gave up, crossed the glacier and rejoined the boat, to set off for Cape Horn to climb the South face, knowing that the weather was good one day a month... On January 20, 1983, Jean-Marc Boivin and Dominique Marchal succeeded in making the first ascent of the South face of Cape Horn.

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Directed by Jean-Marc Boivin in 1977, Glace Extrême is a documentary about mountaineering and extreme skiing at the Aiguille Verte and the Grand Pilier D'angle in the Mont-Blanc massif chain in France, with the legends of mountaineering Jean-Marc Boivin, Patrick Gabarrou and ski champion Patrick Vallencant. It was broadcast in the Carnet de L'Aventure on France 2 in 1980.

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Ski Peru is the story of two skiers’ dream of descending the untamed slopes of Huascaran, although maybe 'Ski Peru and die' would be a more appropriate title given the tragic climax to Peter Chrzanowski’s Peruvian odyssey. Filmed long before today’s adrenaline charged ski videos on heavy 16mm movie cameras there is no heavy rock soundtrack, no helicopters, no roboskiers mainlining powder at Mach 5.0. It is a slow moving film that explores man’s relationship with the mountain and what it is to ski into the unknown.

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In 1975, Patrick Vallençant skied in some very challenging couloirs in the Oisans region: the north couloir of the Col du Diable, the north couloir of the Coup de Sabre, the couloir of the Pic sans Nom, the Barre Noire couloir in the Écrins massif, and the Gravelotte couloir on the Meije. He was accompanied by Jean-Marc Boivin, P. Guillet, P. Perrier, Gérard Pétrignet, Jacques Ramouillet, Pierre Saloff-Coste, and Joseph Spagnolo. In the second part of the trip, Vallençant completed a circuit of the Meije in three mixed-mountain ascents and, above the avalanche debris, skied off-piste through the steep couloirs and glaciers of the Oisans. He then climbed the routes to the summit of the Meije alone, following the stages of a high-mountain itinerary from the Refuge de l'Aigle.

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