Sherpa

Directed by Jennifer Peedom, this Australian documentary set out to understand a 2013 brawl on Everest between roughly a hundred Sherpas and three European alpinists in which punches were thrown. The plan was to film the 2014 climbing season from the Sherpas' point of view and show what it is like to walk in a Sherpa's boots. At its center was Phurba Tashi, head Sherpa of the Himex team, who had summited Everest twenty one times and was preparing for a record breaking twenty second. Then, on the morning of April 18, 2014, at six forty five, a block of ice weighing roughly fourteen thousand tons fell onto the route through the Khumbu Icefall, killing sixteen Sherpas, the deadliest single day in Everest's history to that point. The crew was there, and the film changed entirely. The Sherpas refused to continue climbing, their anger directed this time not at climbers but at the government, demanding better compensation and insurance, and the season was cancelled. It closes with Phurba Tashi retiring at his family's request. The film won the Grierson Award at the London Film Festival and an AACTA for its score, was nominated for a BAFTA, and holds ninety seven percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Who it's for: Anyone interested in mountaineering and in the invisible labor behind tourism. Who it's not for: Not for viewers wanting a summit story, since the film is about the opposite, a season collapsing.