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After 100 years of speculation, remains of one of the first ever Brits to climb Mount Everest have been discovered by a group filming a Nat Geo feature including Oscar-winner Jimmy Chin.

The group was filming the upcoming doc when they found what is believed to be the foot encased in a sock and boot of Andrew Irvine, who disappeared on Everest in 1924 along with his partner George Mallory. They were part of the third British expedition to attempt to climb the world’s tallest mountain and would have been the first to have done it.

According to Nat Geo, Free Solo maker Chin and his team found the foot on the Central Rongbuk Glacier below the North Face of Everest at a lower altitude than Mallory’s remains were located. The partial remains – identified with his name stitched into the sock – are now in the possession of the China Tibet Mountaineering Association,...

At the beginning of the Netflix Oscar-contending short documentary Camp Courage, young Milana Abdurashytova takes out paper and makers and draws what she calls “a home of my dreams.” It’s a lovely cottage on a hill, with clouds dotting a sky of blue.

Her real home, in Mariupol, Ukraine lies in ruins like so much of that city and the country, pulverized by Russia bombs and shells. Milana and her grandmother Olga were able to escape Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 and take refuge in Slovakia. But escaping the trauma of war is another matter.

In the film directed by Max Lowe, Milana gets the opportunity to participate in a week-long camp in the peaks surrounding Piesendorf, Austria, joining other Ukrainian kids who have endured shattering loss from the brutal conflict. The camp is a project of the Mountain Seed Foundation, a nonprofit that describes its mission...

Here’s a look at this week’s biggest premieres, parties and openings in Los Angeles and New York, including red carpets for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Elemental and the start of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts premiere

Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Tobe Nwigwe, Liza Koshy, Peter Dinklage, Luna Lauren Velez, Dean Scott Vazquez, Peter Cullen and Pete Davidson walked the red carpet in Brooklyn on Monday for the U.S. premiere of the latest Transformers flick.

Peter Dinklage, Lauren Vélez, Pete Davidson, Tobe Nwigwe, David Sobolov, Ron Perlman, Tongayi Chirisa, Steven Caple Jr., Peter Cullen, Cristo Fernández, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Dominique Fishback, Anthony Ramos and Liza Koshy Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback and Tobe Nwigwe

Tiny Beautiful Things FYC

The Tiny Beautiful Things team, including star Kathryn Hahn, attended an FYC event in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Tanzyn Crawford, Ingrid Michaelson, Kathryn Hahn, Lauren Neustadter...

World class climber Jimmy Chin met his future wife, filmmaker Chai Vasarhelyi, over a mountain – of footage.

He had been working for a number of years on the documentary that would become Meru, the story of an attempt by Chin and his fellow alpinists and friends Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk to become the first to summit the perilous Shark’s Fin peak in the Himalayas. Perhaps because he was so close to the subject matter, the film wasn’t quite cohering.

“I had submitted it to a few film festivals and got turned down,” Chin explained during an Artists & Auteurs conversation at Cph:dox in Copenhagen. He told moderator Thom Powers, TIFF’s documentary programmer and host of the Pure Nonfiction podcast, that while struggling over the film he crossed paths with Vasarhelyi at a conference.

Directors Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin appear at Cph:dox in Copenhagen on Tuesday, March...

Exclusive: The 44th annual Mountainfilm festival has announced its first wave of film titles and festival highlights. Festival-goers can look forward to more than 120 films as the festival takes over Telluride’s majestic box canyon Memorial Day weekend, May 26-30, 2022. The festival will include 31 features and nearly 100 shorts.

Mountainfilm 2022 will highlight 80+ North American, US, and Colorado premieres. Also celebrating world premieres are the highly-anticipated documentary, The Holly, based on the seven-year investigation into the high-profile shooting in Denver’s Holly neighborhood (film subject Terrance Roberts in attendance), and Chasing, a gripping tale of a 3,000-mile rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean (film subject Jason Caldwell in attendance).

The festival also boasts 18 world premiere short films traversing some of the most pertinent issues of the day — from the climate crisis to inclusion to border walls — while also providing film-goers with a dose of the adrenaline-packed, edge-of-your-seat excitement they crave from Mountainfilm.

Exclusive: National Geographic’s award-winning documentary Torn is about to make its streaming platform debut.

Disney+ announced it will premiere the film, directed by Max Lowe, on February 4. Torn tells the story of world-renowned mountain climber Alex Lowe, who was killed in an avalanche in the Himalayas in 1999. He left behind a wife, Jennifer, and three young boys—sons Max, Sam and Isaac. Max, now in his 30s, directed the documentary in part to come to terms with his father’s death, and to process all that came after it.

Accompanying Alex Lowe on that ill-fated expedition were fellow climber Conrad Anker, himself a legendary talent and a close friend of Lowe’s, and cameraman David Bridges. The avalanche also killed Bridges, and left Anker seriously injured but alive. Anker spent time with the Lowe family after Alex’s death and eventually Jennifer and Conrad fell in love and married.

The flood of documentaries in recent years about high-risk climbing and mountaineering have offered plenty of vicarious armchair athleticism, to be sure. But for viewers with a more casual than envious interest in such adventures, it’s hard not to wonder: Do these daredevils have personal attachments? Who’d be reckless or masochistic enough to forge a serious relationship with someone who constantly tempts fate? That issue did get addressed in the hit “Free Solo” three years ago, which devoted attention to ropeless climber Alex Honnold’s first long-term romantic commitment, which naturally renders his day job a greater source of worry to both parties.

But most of these films simply avoid the “What, if any, private life?” question in favor of alfresco thrills — understandably enough, since most of their subjects pointedly haven’t hazarded any settled domesticity that might hobble their sportsmanship. .

The compelling film, which National Geographic begins releasing to theaters on Dec.

Filmmaker Max Lowe was just a kid when his father, the mountaineer Alex Lowe, was killed in an avalanche while climbing in the Tibetan Himalayas. It was a private family tragedy, and yet a public story—Lowe’s death made headlines around the world because he was considered perhaps the greatest mountain climber of his time.

“Alex Lowe, 40, Alpinist, Dies, Swept Away on a Tibet Ascent,” the New York Times reported in October 1999.

The snows entombed Lowe and David Bridges, a 29-year-old cameraman who took part in the expedition organized by North Face, the recreation products company. Conrad Anker, Lowe’s best friend and fellow world-class climber, sustained injuries in the avalanche but survived.

In his new documentary Torn, Max Lowe shares the story of how his father’s death impacted his family, and how Anker came to play an increasingly central role in their lives. The National Geographic doc...

Two documentaries about fallen mountain climbers were accepted into Telluride 2020. Only one held on for this year’s festival.

When last year’s Telluride festival was cancelled in July, the filmmakers behind “The Alpinist” and “Torn had to make a tough decision: should they find another festival to debut their respective films?

“Getting into Telluride was so exciting for us,” says Peter Mortimer, who had re-edited “The Alpinist” with Nick Rosen following the 2018 death of its protagonist, 23-year-old free solo climber Marc-André Leclerc, in an avalanche. “It’s like the holy grail, and Werner Herzog had watched the film and wanted to introduce us on stage after the screening, so when it got canceled, it was bad.”

Red Bull Media House and Sender Films, who produced “The Alpinist,” decided to steer clear of any virtual film festivals and hold the film until the “pandemic improved.” In July Roadside Attractions and...

Documentaries are front and center at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, far more than usual, with 18 new releases in the main program (not classics) and a total of four from NatGeo Documentary Films. How did that happen? NatGeo is no stranger to quality nonfiction, from Oscar, BAFTA, and Emmy-winning “Free Solo” to Oscar-nominated Syria-under-siege documentary “The Cave.”

For one thing, one of the films booked for last year’s canceled festival is in the 2021 selection, as Tff co-director Julie Huntsinger welcomed rookie filmmaker Max Lowe back with “Torn,” the true story of a family hit hard by the loss of his father, legendary mountaineer Alex Lowe, killed in a Tibet avalanche in 1999.

Much like Bing Liu’s Oscar-winning “Minding the Gap,” “Torn” explores untapped emotions as Lowe seeks answers to complex and uncharted family dynamics, helped by his younger brothers, his mother, and her second husband, his father’s mountain partner,...

Documentaries are front and center at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, far more than usual, with 18 new releases in the main program (not classics) and a total of four from NatGeo Documentary Films. How did that happen? NatGeo is no stranger to quality nonfiction, from Oscar, BAFTA, and Emmy-winning “Free Solo” to Oscar-nominated Syria-under-siege documentary “The Cave.”

For one thing, one of the films booked for last year’s canceled festival is in the 2021 selection, as Tff co-director Julie Huntsinger welcomed rookie filmmaker Max Lowe back with “Torn,” the true story of a family hit hard by the loss of his father, legendary mountaineer Alex Lowe, killed in a Tibet avalanche in 1999.

Much like Bing Liu’s Oscar-winning “Minding the Gap,” “Torn” explores untapped emotions as Lowe seeks answers to complex and uncharted family dynamics, helped by his younger brothers, his mother, and her second husband, his father’s mountain partner,...

As usual, Telluride Film Festival has unveiled their 2021 lineup just moments before the event gets underway. Taking place from Thursday, September 2 through Monday, September 6, 2021, the lineup features Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon, Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter, as well as Cannes highlights Bergman Island and Red Rocket, and more.

See the lineup below.

The Automat (d. Lisa Hurwitz, U.S., 2021) In person: Lisa Hurwitz

Becoming Cousteau (d. Liz Garbus, U.S., 2021) In person: Liz Garbus

Belfast (d. Kenneth Branagh, U.K., 2021) In person: Kenneth Branagh, Jamie Dornan

Bergman Island (d. Mia Hansen-Løve, France/Germany/Sweden, 2021) In person: Mia Hansen-Løve

Bitterbrush (d. Emelie Mahdavian, U.S., 2021) In person: Emelie Mahdavian, Colie Moline

C’Mon C’Mon (d. Mike Mills, U.S., 2021) In person: Mike Mills,...

The families of renowned climbers Alex Lowe and David Bridges received some closure last week when the remains of both men were finally found 16 years after they were killed by a Himalayan avalanche, according to a statement on the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation's website. Two hikers found Lowe and Bridges' bodies during their ascent of Shishapangma, the world's 14th tallest mountain, which is located in Tibet. "They had come across the remains of two climbers still encased in blue ice but beginning to emerge from the glacier," the statement said. "[Hiker David] Goettler described the clothing and packs of the climbers to...

The families of renowned climbers Alex Lowe and David Bridges received some closure last week when the remains of both men were finally found 16 years after they were killed by a Himalayan avalanche, according to a statement on the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation's website. Two hikers found Lowe and Bridges' bodies during their ascent of Shishapangma, the world's 14th tallest mountain, which is located in Tibet. "They had come across the remains of two climbers still encased in blue ice but beginning to emerge from the glacier," the statement said. "[Hiker David] Goettler described the clothing and packs of the climbers to...

★★★☆☆ Anyone with a fear of heights should look away now. Jimmy Chin and Elisabeth Chai Vasarhelyi's Meru is at its dizzying best when the filmmaking duo allow the facts and images of an astonishing feat to speak for themselves. Described by Buddhists as "the centre of the universe," the knife-edge summit atop the Shark's Fin of Mount Meru sits over 20,000 feet up in the northernmost reaches of India. The precarious sliver of snowy ground is the pinnacle, both literal and figurative, of the climbing world. Chin, veteran mountaineering partner Conrad Anker and new recruit Renan Ozturk spent years planning, and a number of weeks in the attempted execution, of the impossible.

The National Parks Services celebrates its 100 year anniversary, and to mark the milestone, Laguna Beach filmmakers MacGillivray Freeman Film shot an extraordinary IMAX documentary which follows world-class mountaineer Conrad Anker and his team to give audiences the chance to experience our national treasures such as Yellowstone, the Everglades, the Grand Canyon and other National Parks on the biggest screen possible.  Cinemovie sat down with director Greg MacGillivray and experienced climber Matt Lowe who tells us about their adventure capturing the beauty on IMAX cameras and why Robert Redford volunteered to take no pay to narrate the new documentary opening February 12 on IMAX screens. 

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This film of three adventurers braving storms and avalanches to conquer a Himalayan peak will leave non-fanatics at base camp

The top of the Himalayan mountain Meru remained untrampled until 2011, when a team hauled themselves unaided up the “shark’s fin”, the mountain’s sheer peak. Led by Conrad Anker, famed for finding George Mallory’s body on Everest, the three men, including this documentary’s co-director Jimmy Chin, are shown inching to the summit past storms and avalanches, fear and doubt. A calamitous accident sends one of their number to intensive care, but five months later he’s back, hauling and heaving again. It’s an astounding feat, not least because they were shooting the film as they went, but there’s something – perhaps the profligate use of “super” as an adjective – that’s likely to appeal to the extreme sports market and leave the rest of us stranded.

This is definitely the time of year when film critic types (I’m sure you know who I mean) spend an inordinate amount of time leading up to awards season—and it all leads up to awards season, don’t it?—compiling lists and trying to convince anyone who will listen that it was a shitty year at the movies for anyone who liked something other than what they saw and liked. And ‘tis the season, or at least ‘thas (?) been in the recent past, for that most beloved of academic parlor games, bemoaning the death of cinema, which, if the sackcloth-and-ashes-clad among us are to be believed, is an increasingly detached and irrelevant art form in the process of being smothered under the wet, steaming blanket of American blockbuster-it is. And it’s going all malnourished from the siphoning off of all the talent back to TV, which, as everyone knows,...

Jimmy Chin on Mount Meru Photo: Renan Ozturk

In Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin's Oscar shortlisted Best Documentary Film nominee Meru, three of the world’s most accomplished mountain climbers, Conrad Anker, Renan Ozturk and Chin himself, attempt to conquer nature, outward and inward, to reach the Shark’s Fin on Mount Meru, the heretofore impossible peak in the Himalayas. The footage is breathtaking, the obstacles seem insurmountable, the trust and friendship between them has to be complete and you will find yourself cheering them on.

Jimmy Chin: "I owe so much to Conrad …" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The Arnold Fanck films with Luis Trenker and Leni Riefenstahl The Holy Mountain (Der Heilige Berg) and The Great Leap (Der Grosse Sprung) and Storm Over Mont Blanc (Stürme Über Dem Mont Blanc) with Riefenstahl and Sepp Rist came to mind as I spoke with Jimmy Chin. He expressed his love of the ocean,...

Just when everyone thought Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel couldn't get any cuter, the couple was spotted flirting up a storm at an event on Wednesday night. They made their adorable appearance at a screening and reception for the film Meru at Red Studios in Los Angeles. Both Biel, 33, and Timberlake, 34, opted for casual looks at the event, with Biel sporting a pair of jeans, a blouse and heels. Timberlake donned a button-down shirt, blue pants and white tennis shoes. The singer and actress are seen in photos snuggling close to each other, even when snapping pics with fellow attendees like Jimmy Chin,...

Just when everyone thought Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel couldn't get any cuter, the couple was spotted flirting up a storm at an event on Wednesday night. They made their adorable appearance at a screening and reception for the film Meru at Red Studios in Los Angeles. Both Biel, 33, and Timberlake, 34, opted for casual looks at the event, with Biel sporting a pair of jeans, a blouse and heels. Timberlake donned a button-down shirt, blue pants and white tennis shoes. The singer and actress are seen in photos snuggling close to each other, even when snapping pics with fellow attendees like Jimmy Chin,...

Our resident VOD expert tells you what's new to rent and/or own this week via various Digital HD providers such as cable Movies On Demand, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Google Play and, of course, Netflix. Cable Movies On Demand: Same-day-as-disc releases, older titles and pretheatrical exclusives for rent, priced from $3-$10, in 24- or 48-hour periods The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (action-comedy; Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Hugh Grant; rated PG-13) Meru (Himalayan big-wall-climbing documentary; Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin; rated R) We Are Your Friends (drama; Zac Efron, Emily Ratajkowski, Wes Bentley; rated R) #Horror (horror; Chloë Sevigny, Natasha Lyonne, Balthazar Getty; premieres 11/20 on cable Mod and in theaters; not rated) Criminal Activities...

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On Demand DVD New Releases Nov. 16-22 The Man From U.N.C.L.E. – American agent Napoleon Solo and Russian agent Illya Kuryakin will need to work together to try to stop a nuclear bomb from falling into the wrong hands. Could this team be the start of a new elite government agency? Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander (PG-13, 1:56) 11/17 Meru – In this documentary, three renowned climbers navigate nature’s harshest elements and their own complicated inner demons to ascend Mount Meru, the most technically complicated peak in the Himalayas. Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker (R, 1:30) 11/17 We Are Your Friends … Continue reading →

The post On Demand DVD New Releases Nov. 16-22 appeared first on Channel Guide Magazine.

Chicago – There is a fictional film about to be released called ‘Everest,’ but now there is the real deal, a documentary about climbing Mount Meru, one of the most difficult and spiritual peaks in the world. “Meru” is co-directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. On the expedition itself, Chin was also a climber and cameraman.

Mount Meru is located in Northern India, and has a sacredness that is recognized by three different spiritual practices – Hindus, Jains and Buddhists consider it’s location to be the center of the metaphysical universe. The difficulty of the climb is such that only the most experienced could attempt it. “Meru” chronicles the two climbs made by three such experienced men – Conrad Anker, Ronan Ozturk and Jimmy Chin.

Director & Climber Jimmy Chin of ‘Meru’

Photo credit: Music Box Films

Chin is a professional climber, mountaineer, skier, producer, director, photographer and cinematographer. His lists...

There is a small faction of climbers for whom a mountain’s size and its supposedly un-ascendable conditions can prove to be the most tempting of challenges. The more demanding and dangerous the climb, theoretically, the greater the reward. Conrad Anker, the man who purportedly found George Mallory’s body near the peak of Everest in 1999 and has devoted his subsequent years to a series of almost unbelievably daunting expeditions, is one of these climbers. He must clearly believe that no journey is irresolvable, because what he puts himself and his crew through in “Meru” — a harrowing, gorgeous new doc directed by Anker’s fellow climbers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, about the first ever journey up Mount Meru, one of the milestones of big-wall climbing — would shake most of us puny mortals to our very core. This is a striking, clear-eyed, and expressive film, and also an occasionally problematic one.

Meru

Directed byJimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

USA, 2015

There’s a fine line between determination and obsession, and it’s often ambiguous as to where the subjects of Meru, a new documentary about three men’s ambition to climb one of the world’s most treacherous mountains, find themselves. In fact, it often seems as if the men themselves don’t know, nor do their families, and it barely seems to matter: they have their fixations, and they will remain as such regardless of how they’re classified.

The three men are Conrad Anker, Renan Ozturk, and Jimmy Chin (who also co-directed the film with Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi), professional climbers for whom one goal appears to subsume all others: reaching the top of the titular mountain. As they explain in the film’s opening moments, with the aid of writer Jon Krakauer (author of Into Thin Air, a gripping...

The documentary about the struggle to conquer the Shark’s Fin on the northern India peak was long in the making – but offers a rare glimpse of the psychological torment of climbers insistent on pushing themselves to their physical limit

In 2008, Conrad Anker and Jimmy Chin, two of the world’s strongest climbers, partnered up with relative newcomer Renan Ozturk to tackle the Shark’s Fin on Meru, a 21,000-foot knife edge balanced on a mix of technical rock slabs, snow and rotten ice in northern India.

It had never been summited before, and their attempt went about as badly as it could: they ran out of food, suffered frostbite, and were forced to turn back just 100 meters from the summit. Despite the damage, Anker, now 52, spent the following three years “possessed” by the Shark’s Fin. Not even a traumatic brain injury Ozturk sustained backcountry skiing or an avalanche...

Stakes are high when climbing one of the most inhospitable peaks in the world, and deciding whether a shot at glory warrants the tremendous risks is not a painless task. Located above the Ganges River in a remote location in Northern India, Mount Meru represented the ultimate test for a group of renowned American climbers. This mountain had defeated some of the best teams in the sport and remained unconquered for many years until the relentless reached the summit. Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker, and Renan Ozturk persevere through hardships and near-death experiences to stand where no human had before. Their quest for this historic first ascent and their unbreakable high-altitude friendships are documented in a film simply titled “Meru.”

Chin was not only part of the action at 21, 000 feet, but he is the co-director of the film and the one in charge of shooting the breathtaking and often frightening footage under strenuous circumstances. Documentarian Chai Vasarhelyi served as the other half of this filmmaking team to create a narrative that could enthrall audiences beyond those already interested in mountain climbing or extreme sports. By centering their story on Chin’s relationships with his teammates and the utmost respect they feel for one another, the co-directors captured the human drama heightened by this astonishing natural setting.

"Meru" had it’s World Premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and has now been released by Music Box Films in L.A, NYC, and other cities around the country.

Aguilar: It seems like you two were on completely different paths career wise, how did you connect and began working on this project together?

Chai Vasarhelyi: Jimmy and I met at a conference. He knew I was a documentary filmmaker and he was in the process of making this film. He shared a cut with me, and I don’t know if you know this but Jimmy and I are now married, so in the process of getting to know him I became involved with the film.

Aguilar: Jimmy, what are some of the reasons you are so passionate about climbing despite the risks? It is the rush or the feeling of accomplishment that come with each incredible feat?

Jimmy Chin: It’s kind of why a musician makes music or why an artist makes art. It’s what they do. It’s what they love. It’s what they are passionate about. It’s gratifying on a lot of levels. It just happens that mountain climbing has these risks. Whether or not you consider me lucky or unlucky as somebody who’s found their passion, because I don’t think everybody necessarily finds his or hers, that’s one thing, but mine happens to be climbing. It’s an incredible way to interact with the landscape, to be outside, to spend time with friends, to travel, and I love physical movement of it. It’s also very cerebral, it requires a lot of difficult decision-making all the time. You are constantly making decisions and some minds like that. Mathematicians have a certain type of mind, and climbers have a certain type of mind, because climbing poses these incredibly interesting problems for them. Those are some of the reasons why I love it. It’s also very beautiful and an incredible experience.

Aguilar: Shooting footage while climbing must add another layer of complexity to the already physically demanding environment. How do you manage these two different aspects simultaneously?

Jimmy Chin: The thing is that climbing and my filming have really grown together. They didn’t just paralleled each other but they grew together. When I go on a big climb or an expedition, it’s just part of the process to shoot. Of course, Meru was an extremely challenging climb and the filming of it was extremely challenging as well. It was kind of like the ultimate test for me and what I do on a lot of different levels. But definitely, the shooting was extraordinarily challenging. Managing the physical duress that you are under, like staying warm and other things, while dealing with is this other narrative in your head as you think about filming.

Aguilar: Chai, do you feel like you bring a different point of view given that you are not a climber? Was that part of the reason why you wanted to work on this film?

Chai Vasarhelyi: Yes, I think that was the strength of the collaboration. My role was to really be objective as a non-climber and to focus on the human story and the emotional journey of the characters. That’s how Jimmy and I worked. I was supposed to be an outside voice

Aguilar: Obviously, you were not present during the shooting and saw the footage after the fact. Does that change the dynamic for you as a filmmaker when trying to assemble the story?

Chai Vasarhelyi: I think in all of the films I’ve made is the human story that’s really important to me. This is the first time I wasn’t present in the action, I wasn’t in the mountain. Every other film I’ve made I was immersed in the action, so it’s a different type of challenge but I think the approach is very similar as with my other work.

Aguilar: One of the most remarkable things about the film was witnessing this special kind of friendship that climbers share. They are not just friends, their bond is much more profound because their lives depend on each other.

Jimmy Chin: One of the motivations for me in making the film was to make a film that really spoke to what I found to be the most profound aspect of climbing, which was the friendships that it created and mentorship. My whole career exists because I had really incredible mentors. The power of that mentorship, the power of the friendship and what you can achieve when you put those things together, that was really the focus and very essential to the film for sure. It makes me very happy that you found the story about our friendships very powerful because that was something I felt was really important and special about climbing.

Aguilar: Climbing is a collective sport, just like filmmaking is a collective art form. Neither of them can be done without the help of some like-minded people.

Jimmy Chin: We talked a lot about the parallels between filmmaking and climbing mountains just in terms of the commitment it requires, absolute devotion, and the belief that you are going to make a film and that the film is going to be Ok, as well as the risks you have to take. You are never going to climb anything great if you don’t take risks, and I don’t feel like you can ever make a really great film without taking risks either.

Aguilar: There is a point in the film when we don't know if you are going to continue or not. Was that a turning point for you or did you ever consider retiring from the sport?

Jimmy Chin: After the avalanche it wasn’t like I didn’t think I was gonna do any more expeditions, but it shook me pretty deeply. I didn’t really know how to manage it very well. I certainly wasn’t thinking that I was going back to Meru at that point. I was so far from even considering it. It wasn’t like I didn’t think I could do Meru, I just wasn’t even thinking about it. What really came to me was that climbing as sport and as practice is really important to me, but it’s also my community and how I interact with my peers. To take that away was too much to think about. I still love it. I live to climb. It gives me a lot of joy and purpose.

Aguilar: Conquering Meru and making a film while doing it must be a surreal, gratifying and emotional triumph.

Jimmy Chin: I would say, of course, as a climber first ascends are your legacy. We kept really pushing and I’m proud and happy to have done it. I really appreciate that the film says what I wanted to say and it’s going to outlive me. For me the film has been something I’ m incredibly happy about.

Aguilar: Chai, while watching the footage were you shocked at the lengths these men will go to achieve their dream?

Chai Vasarhelyi: It was actually a little different because I only got involved after they had finished the climb, so I knew the outcome. But I definitely found the lengths to which they went to achieve this very moving. What I also found very moving was the act of friendship that allows them to bring Ranan back on the second climb and how it shows that the objective was not necessarily the summit, it was more important for them to remain a team and to honor that friendship and teamwork. I though that with the right structural work and emotional work this could really fulfill Jimmy’s vision of what he wanted the film to say and could help this film reach a wider audience beyond the core audience.

Aguilar: Jimmy, tell me about Conrad and how important has his mentoring been for you and for the film. From what we see in "Meru," he seems like an amazing character.

Jimmy Chin: Conrad is an incredibly humble and generous soul. He also happens to be one of the great climbers of our time and one of the most prolific climbers of our time. I really do owe my career to Conrad. He took me under his wing and believed in me. I've always wanted to share this. Part of what I wanted to show is what an incredible person Conrad is. I’ve spent ten years worth of expeditions with him. When you spend that much time with somebody in those kind of circumstances and you come out of it thinking that person is more incredible than when you first met them, that says a lot because during that time you see every side of that person. Hopefully the film shows what kind of character Conrad is. I didn’t make him out to be more than he is. It’s incredibly meaningful to me that Conrad likes the film [Laughs].

Aguilar: Are there any mountains out there you still hope to climb someday?

Jimmy Chin: There are a few out there, but we also have a daughter. My world isn’t just consumed by climbing. Making films and the creative aspects of life are very gratifying for me as well. There are some film projects in development that we are thinking about right now.

“Pulse-pounding” is an adjective that’s too often used in cases where it is less than just. Any action film with a pace above what would otherwise be called “jaunty” will see this descriptor attached via some less than verbose critics and every thriller under the sun has seen the “heart racing” moniker on its home video release back cover. However, every so often, a film comes along that gets hearts racing like a bat out of hell.

One such film hits theaters this Friday, and comes to us from Music Box Films and directors Jimmy Chin and E. Chai Vasarhelyi. Entitled Meru, this new documentary brings us to one of the most dangerous places in the world. The Shark’s Fin on Mount Meru, in Northern India, is one of the big prizes in the dangerous world of big-wall climbing. Seemingly laughing in the faces of all who attempt to climb her majestic peaks,...

"Meru" follows three climbers: Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk and me on our two attempts of the one of the most notorious high altitude big wall climbs in the world. Having beaten back some of the world's best Himalayan big wall climbers, The Shark's Fin on Meru has seen more attempts and failures than any climb in the Himalaya. Read More: 'Cartel Land' Director on How to Insert Yourself into Dangerous and Impossible Situations What makes Meru such a difficult climb is the fact that it requires climbing at a high level in all the disciplines of climbing - ice climbing, mixed climbing, rock climbing, aid climbing and being strong at altitude. The mountain is also stacked in a perverse manner. There is 4000 feet of alpine climbing on steep snow, ice and rock which normally requires going light and fast. The great challenge is that there is a...

Elite mountain climber Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi collaborated on a movie, "Meru" (Music Box, August 14) unlike any you've ever seen before. The difference between this survival doc and others like "Touching the Void" is that professional mountaineer Jimmy Chin, 41, one of a team of three Alpinists who first ascended the Shark's fin route up the central peak of the Himalayan mountain (20,700ft) in October, 2011, is that he juggles three careers as climber, filmmaker and National Geographic photographer. (He's so busy that when Hollywood came calling to get his help on "Everest" he was unavailable.) For "Meru" he and fellow climber Renan Ozturk documented two difficult ascents led by climber legend Conrad Anker. On the first one in 2008, which Chin shot with a little Panasonic, the trio encountered blizzards which delayed their climb, reduced their rations, and forced them to turn back 100 yards from the summit. "It's...

Treacherous Journey to The Top Shows Unmeasured Determination

At over 20,000 feet, the highest peak of the Meru Mountain, also known as the Shark’s Fin, exists as a monument of nature’s boundless capacity and power. For a group of mountain climbers who aspires to be the first to conquer it, the peak exists solely to taunt as a mammoth mark of the unattainable. Following Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin (the director/producer/cinematographer), and Renan Ozturk, Meru serves as perennial struggle between man and nature and self.

The long-standing partnership between climbers Anker and Chin was cultivated through many years and perilous excursions. The trust required in their life and death situations is rooted in their understanding of each other and the path that they have ultimately chosen for themselves. Their families and loved ones can certainly attest to the fact that the life of a climber is not the...

Meru Music Box Films Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes. Grade: B+ Director: Jimmy Chin, E. Chai Vaserhelyi Cast: Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, Renan Ozturk, Jon Krakauer, Jenni Lowe-Anker, Amee Hinkley, Grace Chin, Jeremy Jones Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 6/23/15 Opens: August 14, 2015 You say you like the beach—except for the water, the sand, the sun, the sharks, the human pee in the water. And you think snorkeling’s a bore and deep-sea diving is too dangerous? Then the mountains may be for you. You like to ski but you’re willing to raise the ante and do some climbing. Then you have something in common [ Read More ]

The post Meru Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Read More: Music Box Films Acquires Sundance Audience Award Winner 'Meru'Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi's documentary "Meru" shocked Sundance audiences with its first-person account of three mountain climbers who set out to conquer the most treacherous and dangerous mountain peak in the world. Aptly named the "Shark's Fin," the peak of Mount Meru has served as an obsession and unattainable goal for renowned alpinists Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk. After their failed attempt to reach the top of Meru in 2008, the three climbers returned to their respective homes, defeated and still tempted to return to the Shark's Fin. In 2011, Anker convinced his two fellow climbers to attempt the deathly journey once more. "Meru" thus serves as the culmination and documentation of their death-defying and extraordinary second attempt.  The documentary opens on August 14 in New York City and Los Angeles, with a national expansion to.

Music Box Films will release the Sundance Audience Award-winning documentary Meru in New York and Los Angeles on Aug. 14. The film tells of alpinists Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk who, in 2008, arrived in India to tackle the Shark's Fin on Mount Meru, which sits 21,000 feet above the sacred Ganges River. Their planned seven-day trip devolved into a 20-day odyssey and ultimately ended within 100 meters of the summit. Three years later the trio returned to once again attempt to reach the peak, this new documentary tells that story. Watch the trailer below. yt id="YvS6O9lVkkg" width="640"...

Read More: Music Box Films Acquires Sundance Audience Award Winner 'Meru' After winning the Us Documentary Audience Award at this year's Sundance, the heart-pounding mountain climbing documentary "Meru" is soon set to hit theaters. To celebrate the release of Jimmy Chin and E. Chai Vasarhelyi's film, we're pleased to debut a brand new poster for the project. The official synopsis reads: "In the high-stakes pursuit of big-wall climbing, the Shark's Fin on Mount Meru may be the ultimate prize. Sitting 21,000 feet above the sacred Ganges River in Northern India, the mountain's perversely stacked obstacles make it both a nightmare and an irresistible calling for some of the world's toughest climbers. In October 2008, renowned alpinists Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk arrived in India to tackle Meru. Their planned seven-day trip quickly declined into a 20-day odyssey in sub-zero temperatures with depleting food rations. Despite making it to...

Courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society.

Meru may be a meaningless name to those who aren’t a part of the climbing community, but for three American alpinists, veteran Conrad Anker, photographer Jimmy Chin and freestyle extraordinaire Renan Ozturk, making the first successful ascent of the treacherous peak in the Gharwal Himalayas was a goal bordering on obsession. The documentary of their journey weaves together footage from the team’s two attempts, in 2008 and 2011, with interviews with the climbers as well as their loved ones.

Co-directed by Chin and documentary filmmaker E. Chai Vasarhelyi, Meru is a compelling narrative of friendship, teamwork and the triumph of man’s will in the most unforgiving of circumstances. Having won over Sundance earlier this year and taking the Audience Award, the two directors (also husband and wife since 2013) spent a few days promoting the film at the San Francisco International Film Festival,...

Courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society.

T-Rex

Directed by Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari

USA, 2015

T-Rex follows the harrowing journey of seventeen year old Claressa “T-Rex” Shields from her small hometown of Flint, Michigan, to London in the summer of 2012, where she is in contention for a gold medal in the newly added women’s boxing event. Although training at the elite level in any discipline is a remarkable feat on its own, Shields’ background, including an alcoholic mother and a father who was in prison for much of her childhood, makes her accomplishments all the more inspirational. And due to USA Boxing rules, her coach and surrogate father is forced to watch her biggest matches from the stands rather than be by her side at the ring. As much as Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari’s film deals with overcoming adversity, Shields’ story is also a telling example...

Over a period of years, three climbers — Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk — make repeated efforts to scale a 21,000 foot peak in Northern India, Mount Meru. Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s Meru is the chronicle of that quest, a story of not just mountain-climbing athleticism but also friendship and camaraderie. The winner of the U.S. Documentary Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, Meru, strikingly, was lensed by two of the film’s three climbers, with one of them suffering severe injuries on the climb — an accident that is part of the film’s story. Below, […]...

Over a period of years, three climbers — Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk — make repeated efforts to scale a 21,000 foot peak in Northern India, Mount Meru. Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s Meru is the chronicle of that quest, a story of not just mountain-climbing athleticism but also friendship and camaraderie. The winner of the U.S. Documentary Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, Meru, strikingly, was lensed by two of the film’s three climbers, with one of them suffering severe injuries on the climb — an accident that is part of the film’s story. Below, […]...

Once director Doug Liman finishes up All You Need Is Kill with Tom Cruise he will move on to Everest, and hopes Tom Hardy will lead the charge up the mountain.

Deadline is reporting that Hardy is in early to talks to star as George Mallory in the Sony Pictures film.

Here’s a little on Mallory from Deadline:

At the time, Great Britain had been decimated by Wwi, poverty and angst was rampant and the nation craved a hero. Mallory tried hard to fill that bill, even though he was caught short in his first two attempts to summit the mountain, in 1921 and 1922. A devoted husband and father, he was torn between adventure and the simple fact his family wanted him with them. He refused to use oxygen to aid him in high altitude in thin air the first two times. On the final climb, he and climbing partner...

[1] Yet another Jeffrey Archer-based project is in the works, the third announced this month. Bourne director Doug Liman has signed on to direct Everest, an adaptation of Archer's novel Paths of Glory. Up in the Air scribe Sheldon Turner is writing the script, which fictionalizes the story of real-life mountaineer George Mallory and his three attempts in the '20s to become the first man to reach the top of the world's highest mountain. More details after the jump. Here's Deadline's [2] summary of Mallory's fascinating tale: The film is about Mallory’s burning obsession to climb to the top of Mount Everest, and a rivalry with another great climber, Australian George Finch (the grandfather of actor Peter Finch), to get there first. While Everest has been scaled many times (though bodies are littered near the top of the summit of those who failed), the feat was symbolically important and...

Doug Liman may be an experienced climber in real-life, but his now going pro. Deadline reports that the Bourne Identity director has signed on to direct Everest, a Sony Pictures drama about "George Mallory and his three attempts in the early 1920s to become the first man to climb Everest, the world’s highest mountain." The film is being adaped from Jeffrey Archer’s book Paths of Glory, by Sheldon Turner who is penning the script. Jennifer Klein is serving as producer on the project.

The film is about "Mallory’s burning obsession to climb to the top of Mount Everest, and a rivalry with another great climber, Australian George Finch (the grandfather of actor Peter Finch) to get there first. While Everest has been scaled many times (though bodies are littered near the top of the summit of those who failed), the feat was symbolically important and for its...

Doug Liman has signed on to direct Everest for Sony Pictures. We first reported on this project back in August 2009, when Sony acquired the rights to Jeffrey Archer's book, Paths of Glory.

Sheldon Turner is adapting the book, which centers on George Mallory, who tried to be the first man to scale Mount Everest in the 1920s. The movie will center on Mallory's obsession with the mountain, and his rivalry with fellow climber George Finch. After two attempts which fell short in 1921 and 1922, George Mallory and his climbing partner, Sandy Irvine were last spotted near the top of Mount Everest on their last attempt in 1924, before they disappeared. George Mallory's remains were discovered by climber Conrad Anker in 1999. Conrad Anker's discovery was chronicled in the 2010 documentary The Wildest Dream.

Doug Liman, who himself is an avid climber, will supervise Sheldon Turner's next draft of the script. Everest...

Reviewer: Philip Tatler

Rating (out of 5): ***½

Within the first decades of the 20th Century, Earth was becoming a smaller place. Most of the planet's surface had been mapped and the poles had been successfully reached. Only one natural superlative remained in defiance of man's despoilment: Earth's highest peak, Tibet's Mt. Chomolungma, known more familiarly in the West as Mt. Everest.

Anthony Geffen's film The Wildest Dream, released as an IMAX spectacular via National Geographic's theatrical imprint, documents the doomed 1924 conquest of Everest by British mountaineer George Mallory. Mallory's story dovetails into American climber Conrad Anker's modern attempt to reach Everest's summit using Mallory's route.

Hitting movie theaters this weekend:

Limitless – Bradley Cooper, Anna Friel, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro

The Lincoln Lawyer – Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe

Paul – Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen

Movie of the Week

Limitless

The Stars: Bradley Cooper, Anna Friel, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro

The Plot: A copywriter (Cooper) discovers a top-secret drug which gives him super-human abilities.

The Buzz: Until recently, I couldn’t stand Bradley Cooper — and no, it wasn’t his role in A-Team that won me over, it was, hearkening back a decade, his role in the television series ‘Alias.’ Yes, I’m a total johnny-come-lately when it comes to that show, but I love it, and I love Bradley Cooper in it. He can act, I was surprised to see. His success with ‘Alias’ ultimately launched his career, and now, ten years later, here he is approaching A-list status, starring in a fine-looking action film,...

A look at what's new on DVD today:

"Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection"

Directed by Fernando Di Leo

Released by RaroVideo

Fans of badass '70s cinema and the stoic Henry Silva rejoice! Underappreciated Italian crime master director Fernando Di Leo finally comes to the U.S. via this set of four films -- "Caliber 9," "The Italian Connection," "The Boss," and "Rulers of the City" -- that shows what made him an influence of filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and John Woo.

"The Absent" (2011)

Directed by Sage Bannick

Released by Passion River

Twin brothers are bonded by the experience of having their parents try to kill them for insurance money, only to become killers themselves in this slasher film from Sage Bannick.

"Be My Teacher" (2011)

Directed by Lakisha R. Lemons

Released by Maverick Entertainment Group

A student's (Derek Lee Nixon) flirtations with his English teacher (Lateace Towns-Cuellar) has serious...

In 1999, American mountaineer Conrad Anker discovered the body of George Mallory, the British climber who 75 years earlier failed to return from his third assault on Everest. Geffen reconstructs the tragic assault on Everest by Mallory and Irvine while observing Anker's and Leo Houlding's attempt to repeat the earlier expedition using the primitive equipment of 1924.

It's a handsome, deeply affecting picture, narrated by Liam Neeson and making excellent use of the correspondence between Mallory and his wife, Ruth. Ruth's letters were recorded by Neeson's wife, Natasha Richardson, six weeks before her death.

DocumentaryNatasha RichardsonRalph FiennesDramaMount EverestPhilip French

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Fascinating documentary about George Mallory's ill-fated Everest expedition. By Cath Clarke

In 1999, the top American mountaineer Conrad Anker discovered the body of George Mallory on Everest. Mallory and his young climbing partner, Sandy Irvine, disappeared in 1924, last spotted just 800 metres from the peak. The enduring mystery is whether they were going up or coming down (which would place them at the summit 30 years before Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary). In this National Geographic documentary Anker goes back to Everest to retrace Mallory's expedition. With the exception of some TV-duff recreations and CSI-style razzle-dazzle it is fascinating. What drives men and women to risk snow blindness, frostbite, (there is a gruesome story of a man coughing up a bit of frozen larynx) and a good chance of death on Everest? Mallory's famous answer was, of course: "Because it's there." The film is at its most absorbing as Liam Neeson narrates an account of Mallory's life,...

An extraordinary insight into the loftiest climes of human ambition...

“It’s 50-1 against but we’ll have the whack yet”.

The year is 1924 and George Mallory is six days from the summit of Everest. His life ambition, to ascend the unconquerable jagged colossus, is within tantalising reach. Alongside him, Sandy Irvine makes some final adjustments to their oxygen apparatus. Mallory composes a letter to his wife Ruth, promising, in a grand romantic gesture, to leave her picture at the summit. A debilitating cough grips his body, causing it to seize up. The next day they set out, and, as the clouds roll in, a mere 800 feet from the summit they are never to be seen again.

“I saw a patch of white that was whiter than the snow…I realized that this wasn't a body from recent times; it was something that had been there for quite a while.