Gran Paradiso (2000)

Twenty-three-year-old Mark, played by Ken Duken, lost his mother when he was still a child. His father died in a motorcycle accident while he and Mark were on their way to the Alps to climb Gran Paradiso. Since the accident, Mark has been paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair, and he cannot come to terms with his situation. After he assaulted a doctor, he is now being cared for in a residential institution for people with intellectual disabilities. When therapist Lisa (Regula Grauwiller) starts her new job at the institution, she tries to draw Mark out of his isolation. But it is only after she promises, in a dramatic situation—when Mark is on the verge of killing himself by throwing himself from the roof of one of the institution’s buildings—to take him to Gran Paradiso that he agrees to talk to her. She turns to her longtime acquaintance Martin (Max Herbrechter), whose work involves rehabilitating offenders, and persuades him to take part in the venture. At last, a mixed team of prisoners and people with intellectual disabilities sets out to conquer the mountain with Mark, under Lisa and Martin’s leadership. They overcome every obstacle, including two conspicuously portrayed as malicious antagonists and an innkeeper who is hostile toward people with disabilities, and the film ends with a scene in which Mark leaves his dead father’s altimeter on the summit.