04/02/2025 - Filmmaker Ellen Vermeulen follows in the footsteps of Marie-Louise Chapelle, the first French woman to pave a way through the Himalayas

On 5 February, Avila Film are releasing Forbidden Pilgrimage - the new documentary feature by Belgian director Ellen Vermeulen (Inclusive, 9999 [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) - in Belgian cinemas. At the crossroads between a first-person story, an expedition journal and a montage of archive images, the film follows the dual trajectories of two women with 70 years between them who alternately cross paths or advance in parallel, but who are ultimately haunted by the very same doubts.

In 1952, Marie-Louise Chapelle was the first French woman to walk a previously unexplored route through the Himalayas, in the company of her teammate Frendo. Married from a very young age and a mother to four children, Marie-Louise dreamed of a life spent in nature, free from constraints and unconventional. In other words, a dream incompatible with her life as a housewife, which restricted her to the domestic sphere. So, Marie-Louise decided to split herself in two, living two lives instead of one, spending six months per year in the mountains and six months per year with her family. This choice came at a cost: her loved ones questioned her decision, her children held it against her. And the mountains weren’t a welcoming environment for women either. While walking alongside her team of men, Marie-Louise realised that the more progress she made, the more her comrades became hostile towards her, to the point they eventually forbade her from continuing alongside them: a woman reaching the summit would reduce the mountain to hill status and cheapen their climbing exploits. Ellen, meanwhile, has minimal knowledge of Marie-Louise; there’s her book Pèlerinage interdit, but there’s also her journal, her books and her photos which have been entrusted to her. Just as she’s questioning her own destiny as a woman, Ellen decides to embark on some mountaineering and sets about following in Marie-Louise’s footsteps, both in order to better understand her past and to think about her future. She, too, scales the mountain and physically exhausts herself so as to find answers to her questions, with each and every step forwards representing a victory over herself.

"At last, I’m physically in the place where I’ve roamed mentally for years," the director confides in a voiceover. The film blends text and images: Ellen’s words run alongside Marie-Louise’s; footage of their individual ascents - 70 years apart - dialogue with one another, echoing the dilemma posed by their gender identity. But the film’s images also show how the landscape has changed, the way in which time has damaged the environment: the 1952 expedition is no longer possible because the snow has melted. Ellen’s adventure also highlights the commercialisation of climbing in a striking scene where the two women’s view of the mountains as an escape is contrasted with the reality of the porters and sherpas accompanying them, for whom - far from being a luxury - the mountains are first and foremost a means of survival. Forbidden Pilgrimage combines the intimate self-exploration embarked upon by women who have questioned their relegation to motherhood throughout the centuries, with the breathtaking vertigo offered up by the spectacular natural world, even when it’s being attacked; the infinitely vast snowy mountain slopes teeming with our miniscule human brothers (and sisters), with the infinitely tiny inner storms which drive women to break free from the limits society would impose on them.

Forbidden Pilgrimage was produced by Inti Films in co-production with Volya Films, and has already enjoyed screenings in the Dutch Mountain Film Festival and the En ville! Festival in Brussels.

(Translated from French)