16/09/2025 - Shooting has kicked off in the Aosta Valley on the Italian director’s new film about the legendary Italian mountaineer’s tragic attempt to climb Mont Blanc in 1961

Daniele Vicari and Alessandro Borghi on the set of Bianco (© Alfredo Falvo)

Fresh from participating in the 82nd Venice Film Festival where he presented Tired of Killing [+see also:
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film profile] this year) as legendary mountaineer Walter Bonatti.

The film is based on Frêney 1961 - La tempesta sul Monte Bianco by Marco Albino Ferrari, which is one of the great classics of mountain literature. The subject and screenplay come courtesy of Massimo Gaudioso, Francesca Manieri, Marco Albino Ferrari and Daniele Vicari himself. In 1961, Walter Bonatti led six of the best mountaineers of his generation on a climb thus far considered impossible, scaling the Central Pillar of Frêney - the final corner of Mont Blanc yet to be conquered. Bianco looks back on this tragic endeavour, which saw only three of those involved escaping with their lives and which consigned Walter Bonatti to the history books for his bravery.

Unfolding between the Aosta Valley and the South Tyrol region, filming is kicking off in Courmayeur and will subsequently climb Mont Blanc and follow the path Bonatti actually trod during the tragic expedition charted in the movie: from the Flambeaux to La Fourche before heading on to Peuterey and the foot of the Central Pillar of Frêney, an immense 800-metre-high wall of sheer rock. 

“A few years ago, a film like Bianco would have been impossible”, the director’s notes insist. “You couldn’t have envisaged complicated scenes on vertical walls, with people acting while climbing for weeks and bold camera movements. Shooting a film in a location like that is a real technological, productive and artistic challenge. The work that went into Alfonso Cuarón’s incredible film, Gravity [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile]”, was a real reference point for me”.

Daniele Vicari has always alternated between documentary films and fiction, and his most recent titles are Tired of Killing and the documentary Fela, My Living God [+see also:
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trailer
film profile]. His most successful film, Diaz – Don’t Clean Up This Blood [+see also:
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interview: Daniele Vicari
film profile], was presented in the 2012 Berlinale’s Panorama section and scooped four David di Donatello awards.

Starring alongside Alessandro Borghi are Pierre Deladonchamps (awarded the Best Male Newcomer César for Stranger By The Lake [+see also:
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interview: Alain Guiraudie
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interview: Laetitia Dosch
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interview: Paolo Sorrentino
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film profile] and the series Suburræterna), Quentin Faure (of the series Furies and Dark Hearts), Alessio Del Mastro (of the TV series Thou Shalt Not Kill), and Jonas Bloquet (awarded the Best Newcomer Magritte for Private Lessons [+see also:
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interview: Jacques-Henri Bronckart
interview: Joachim Lafosse
film profile] and recently seen in Night Call [+see also:
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interview: Michiel Blanchart
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Cinematography is entrusted to Gherardo Gossi, set design to Marta Maffucci and costumes to Emmanuelle Youchnovski, while Alessandro Palmerini is overseeing sound and Benni Atria is managing editing.

Bianco is a co-production between Italy, France and Belgium, produced by Mattia Guerra on behalf of Be Water Film and RAI Cinema, by Laurent Fumeron for The Project Film Club, and by Joseph Rouschop and Eva Curia for Tarantula, with support from the Italian Ministry of Culture’s Film and Audiovisual Investment Development Fund, the IDM Film & Music Commission Südtirol and the Aosta Valley Film Commission Foundation.

(Translated from Italian)