Among the 45 films that can be seen starting tomorrow, Saturday, and continuing until the 26th at the BBVA Muntanya Cinema Festival in Torelló, there are small gems that show the lives of unique characters, such as the cellist, mountaineer, skier, and prolific French comedian. Maurice Baquet. Director Gilles Chappaz uses Cérébos, the cello that accompanied Baquet on his Alpine forays, to trace the musician's life in Maurice Baquet, l'Accordé. Torelló is also the setting chosen for the premiere of Canigó 1883, the second part of Albert Naudín's project that seeks to show all the facets of the romantic poet and great hiker Jacint Verdaguer, while continuing his Pyrenean journey.
Santi Pocino and Lluís Soler play Verdaguer at different stages of his life, in a documentary fiction that shows the most intimate poet. Canigó 1883, which also features Sílvia Bel and Xavier Boada in the cast, will hit theaters early next year. Tomorrow, Anori, windsled inuit, the latest documentary by Valencian Carlos Pitarch, which proposes to follow the evolution of Ramon Larramendi aboard his wind sled through Greenland, also premieres in Torelló. The adventurer from Madrid created this wind vehicle that has crossed polar territories hit by the impact of climate change.
Returning to Baquet (1911-2005), it is worth noting that he was perhaps the first musician to carry a cello up the mountain. Chappaz combines historical recordings with recreations of Baquet's journey through the Alpine peaks in the last century to explain who the versatile Baquet was and how he navigated very turbulent times. Sublime images to remember that together with the legendary Gaston Rébuffat, Baquet opened a route along the southeast face of the Aiguille du Midi, in the Mont-blanc massif, in 1956.
Torelló, who is now 41 years old, is synonymous with adventure. His extensive billboard invites the public to travel to unusual corners and characters. From committed mountaineers, such as the protagonists of Nuptse, l'inaccessible absolu, Hélias Millerioux, Frédéric Degoulet and Benjamin Guigonnet, who manage to navigate a new route, on the southern face of this Himalayan peak, to Pasang Lamu Sherpa, the first Nepalese to she rebelled against the bleeding inequalities in her country and set out to climb Everest, where she lost her life in 1993. As is evident in Pasang, in the shadow of Everest, she became a symbol that has encouraged generations of Sherpa women to break with traditions that have relegated them to darkness.
Joan Salarich, director of the contest, highlights the participation in Torelló of directors such as Fulvio Mariani, with Il Ragno della Patagonia; Pavol Baravás, with Gran Canyond; Guillaume Broust, with Chronoception, or the aforementioned Gilles Chappaz. Peter Mortimer also participates, with Burning the Flame, the challenge of climbers Babsi Zangerl and Jakopo Larcher on the Nameless Tower of the Karakoram. Mortimer, along with Nick Rosen, are the creators of the celebrated documentary The Alpinist.
The Torelló festival starts tonight, at 9 p.m., with the show Groenlandia: la Tierra Verde, presented by the comedian Godai Garcia, with live music by the singer-songwriter Carla Serrat and with the participation of the anthropologist specializing in Inuit culture Francesc Bailón and the polar explorer Ramón Larramendi. In addition to cinema, another of the main dishes is the last project of the Catalan climber Sílvia Vidal, who next Wednesday will report the opening of the Sincronia mágica route on the west face of Cerro Chileno Grande, in Patagonia. Vidal will receive the honorary Flor de Neu award in Torelló for his committed solo expeditions.
