Martin Boysen

This is the story of two expeditions to two mountains, one in Argentina the other in Chile. Despite being twelve years apart, one man went on both trips. Don Whillans was an icon of British climbing in the 50s and 60s and his routes are still test pieces today.

The Tyrolean David Lama has climbed an 8a route already at the age of ten, and he has become several times Youth World Champion and European Youth Champion in bouldering and lead climbing. In 2010, at the age of 20 years, David decided to leave the indoor climbing and competition world behind him. Since then, he is focusing on Alpinism, the most difficult routes and first ascents in the Alps, but as well in India and America. This documentary portrays David Lama from his first climbing attempts as a little boy to his big adventures in present time. We see famous locations, such as the climbing paradise on Lake Garda, the notorious Sagwand Face in the Zillertal Alps, and the 7.821m high Masherbrum in the Karakorum with its still untouched north east face.

Don Whillans was one of the leading rock climbers of his generation. This film examines Don’s gritstone horrors, his hard routes in Wales, then follows him to the Alps and beyond on several of his epic expeditions. But it also focuses on Don’s unique humor, his devastating oneliners that pricked pomposity wherever he found it and poked fun at those who deserved it. Don may have died 20 years ago but the myth surrounding Whillans can still be heard whenever climbers reminisce about a time when hard men were hard and legends were being made. Perhaps his partner Joe Brown best sums him up, 'Don was unique'.

A film documenting the British expedition attempting to climb the remote peak of Torre Egger in Patagonia in 1974 by Don Whillans, Martin Boysen, Paul 'Tut' Braithwaite, Eric Jones, Mick Coffey, and Keith Lewis. They didn't succeed on Torre Egger and changed direction in the last days of the trip and climbed the Innominata Needle (also known as Aguja Rafael Juarez). The documentary is part of the series 'Pushing the limits', a series of 10 programs by Leo Dickinson documenting sporting adventures which often test the limits of human endurance.

Ama Dablam is a documentary about alpinism that takes place on Ama Dablam. It was directed by Roger C. Brown in 1979 and produced by ABC. It is a part of the series The American Sportsman. It features Tom Frost, Greg Lowe, Jeff Lowe, Tex Bossier, Martin Boysen, David Breashears and others.

In 1971, a year after Maestri's ascent to Cerro Torre, filmmaker Leo Dickinson climbed and filmed an attempt on the Compressor Route. Dickinson left only a few pieces of clean protection at his highpoint (the headwall ice towers) and no additional fixed gear. While he and the rest of the team did not reach the summit, his reaction to the bolts on the Compressor Route compelled him to travel to Italy to interview Maestri. The result was this documentary.

A British expedition's successful attempt to climb the Trango Tower in the Karakorum Range of the Himalaya's in 1976. The climber Martin Boysen relates the events of the team's first failed attempt to ascend the Tower in 1975. This is followed by footage filmed on the 1976 expedition and the climbers, Martin Boysen, Joe Brown, Mo Anthoine and Malcolm Howells, narrate their experience of the 1976 attempt. The team is seen arriving in the region, hiring porters and trekking over hazardous terrain to reach their base camp. The first attempt to climb the Tower on this occasion is thwarted by bad weather, but the climbers return a few days later to make a successful attempt on the summit.

This entertaining film documents the first ascent of the very difficult South Face of Annapurna, a huge Himalayan wall that the right team could achieve the seemingly impossible. The ascent of the South Face of Annapurna in 1970 was one of those breakthrough ascents - both technically and psychologically. Chris Bonington assembled the cream of British mountaineering and American Tom Frost for the attempt. The documentary is punctuated by wry observation, understatement and cutting humor from a by-gone age when the game of taking huge risks was matched by a determination not to take it too seriously.