In 1952 Marie-Louise Chapelle was the first French woman to reach an untouched Himalayan peak. In 2022, filmmaker Ellen Vermeulen embarks on the same journey to better understand this remarkable woman. For fifty years, Marie-Louise spent half the year living a classic family life with a husband and children and the other half retreating to the high mountains. How would she reconcile a fervent passion with the daily tasks of family life? Forbidden Pilgrimage is an intimate story about a complex contradiction as well as a physical journey through a terrain of snow and ice, guided by two female voices who engage in a dialogue with each other.