Forbidden Pilgrimage

In 1952 Marie-Louise Chapelle makes history by becoming the first woman on a top in the Himalaya Mountains. This expedition to the top of the Chaukhamba I, however, proceeded with great difficulty. From the moment she had to say goodbye to her family until the actual journey, she was thoroughly confronted with her womanhood and the additional idea that women were supposed to stay at home.

Marie-Louise Chapelle was born in 1909 in a bourgeoisie family in the North of France. Her life seemed to be mapped out to become and remain a bourgeois woman with a husband and four children. But, in 1942, she coincidentally ends up in the Alpine mountains where she meets Eduard Frendo, a renowned and experienced mountaineer. This journey will change her life as well as the lives of her family and close friends. The filmmaker embarks on a journey through the feelings of Marie-Louise to understand the woman she was and to explore what is at stake for herself as a woman in todays society.