By Crispian Balmer
VENICE, Sept 3 (Reuters) – A documentary about two elite mountaineers pursuing an apparently impossible dream became a study of grief and resilience after tragedy struck during production, its directors said at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday.
“Everest: The Other Side” began as the story of ski mountaineers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson and their ambition to climb and ski down Everest’s direct North Face, a forbidding route few climbers have ever completed and no-one has skied.
But the National Geographic documentary took a catastrophic turn after Nelson died in 2022 while skiing down Nepal’s Mount Manaslu — a scene captured on film.
“It started as a love story between Jim and Hilaree and their dreams of climbing and skiing the Direct North Face. We never could have anticipated the tragedy that ensued,” co-director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi told reporters.
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The film follows Morrison as he confronts the loss of his partner and decides whether to continue their dream alone.
His journey is given added pathos by the fact his life was already scarred by tragedy, with his wife and their two young children dying in a 2011 plane crash.
“For me, the film really looks at this question through Jim’s eyes of how you can move through grief,” Vasarhelyi said. “How do you learn to live with grief? How does that grief inform a life of intention?”
Morrison said the mountains that had shaped his life also helped him cope with repeated personal losses.
“I’ve suffered a lot of loss in my life and the mountains have provided a lot back to me,” he said. “My craft is putting one foot in front of another and taking one day at a time.”
The film is directed by Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the Oscar-winning duo behind the climbing documentary “Free Solo”.
Chin, who accompanied Morrison on the Everest mission, said the new project sought not only to capture an unprecedented mountaineering feat but also the emotional and practical decisions made in one of earth’s most hostile environments.
“No one’s ever seen mountaineering like this,” Vasarhelyi said, referring to footage shot on Everest’s remote North Face.
Chin described the challenge of filming an expedition where climbers and camera operators were operating at nearly 9,000 metres (29,500 ft).
“The team was made up of world-class athletes and climbers who could also shoot,” he said. “You have to be climbers first.”
The directors also highlighted the role of the Sherpa climbers who formed part of the expedition team, saying a new generation was increasingly pursuing its own ambitions rather than simply supporting Western expeditions.
For Chin, however, the film’s deeper message lies beyond mountaineering.
“When you face your mortality on a fairly regular basis, it is about looking at your life through the lens of the inevitable,” he said. “It can shape the way that you decide to live.”
The film is being shown out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, which runs until September 12.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer)
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