Kaizen

The French YouTuber Inoxtag, twenty-one and not an athlete, decides to climb Everest within a year. Basile Monnot's documentary records that year from preparation to summit. The title comes from the Japanese word kaizen, continuous improvement, and that is the documentary's real subject: not the summit but the small gains made day by day. Monnot does not speed past the time before the mountain; training, failed attempts and acclimatisation take up most of the film. The distribution is notable in itself. It played in cinemas on 13 September 2024 and then went straight to Inoxtag's YouTube channel, and the single-night theatrical event across several countries drew close to four hundred thousand viewers. It runs a hundred and sixty minutes. Who it is for: viewers interested in mountaineering documentaries and in internet culture meeting conventional distribution. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a critical look at the commercialisation of Everest, a debate the film does not enter.