2025

Une femme qui part is the latest documentary by Ellen Vermeulen, in which she delves into the life of the remarkable Marie-Louise Chapelle, the first woman to ascend an uncharted Himalayan peak in 1952. Chapelle led a double life, spending six months fulfilling her role as a mother, and the rest of the year conquering unexplored mountains. Seventy years later, the filmmaker embarks on the same arduous climb. Drawing on Chapelle's archives—comprising diaries, letters, and images—Vermeulen journeys through the snow-covered, inhospitable landscapes that time and climate have so transformed as to render them unrecognizable. She intertwines footage she has filmed herself with Chapelle's archives, reflecting on her own existential questions: a life with children, or without?