Streaming the Himalaya on film

Pasang Lhamu Sherpa was the first Nepali woman to climb Mt Everest, but she died on the descent. She is a national icon, but few have heard of Lhakpa Sherpa, the first Nepali woman to scale the world’s highest mountain and get back down alive.

Both Pasang and Lhakpa were enduring, resilient women who defied the patriarchy, struggled, and triumphed. Their compelling stories are the subjects of two international documentaries.

The 2024 Netflix film Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa recounts her career from porter to a mountaineer who scaled Mt Everest for the 10th time in 2022, and then her hard life as an immigrant in the United States.

That film follows the 2022 documentary Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest which breathes life into a celebrated national hero whose climb and tragic death every Nepali knows by heart. The film is available on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and the US.

The recent trend of making documentaries about mountaineering for streaming sites was kicked off by 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible featuring Nepal-born Nims Purja, in 2021. 14 Peaks was on Netflix's top ten list for months after its release. 

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This was followed by another Netflix production, the docuseries Aftershock: Everest and the Nepal Earthquake about the earthquake-triggered avalanche at Everest Base Camp in 2015 that killed 18 climbers.

Biopics about mountaineers or dramatised adaptations of real-life expeditions have an even longer history with Hollywood’s 1998 IMAX film Everest and the 2015 movie, also titled Everest, about climbers killed by a storm on the mountain in 1996. A biopic on Tenzing Norgay is currently being produced by Apple Original Films starring Tom Hiddleston and William Dafoe.

“The West had always seen Nepal from the set narrative of exotic Shangri La or Shambala, and mountaineering adventure has always pulled them,” explains Ramyata Limbu of the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (KIMFF).

More rare have been films about Nepali mountaineers made by Nepali producers. But as Nepali mountain guides move from being porters for hire to expedition leaders and accomplished mountaineers in their own right, this may be changing.

Says filmmaker Shanta Nepali: “It is only now that the extraordinary stories of Nepali mountaineers are being recognised.” Her 2023 documentary Climbing Temperatures features the Sherpa struggle to adapt to the impact of climate breakdown in the Himalaya. 

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The 2024 documentary Girls Rewriting Destiny by Lawa Pyakurel is another example of Nepali filmmakers telling the story of Nepali mountaineers. Pyakurel’s documentary stars mountaineer Maya Gurung and explores the lives she has touched over the years. 

As Nepalis gain fame and respect for their mountaineering feats, this has concurrently opened up opportunities for local filmmakers to chronicle their adventures on streaming channels.

“It is ten times harder for Nepali filmmakers to take equally deserving Nepali stories to a global platform like Netflix,” says Nepali. “It’s not that we cannot come up with good stories, we just cannot afford it.”

Lack of exposure and a talent gap means some Nepali productions have not been of sufficient quality for streaming sites to take interest. Co-production can be a way out for films on mountaineering, and some have opted for this. But it is equally important for international filmmakers to use local expertise where available so the stories ring true.

Says Nepali. “If local filmmakers are hired just as fixers, they don’t have much say. But if it is for creative input in cinematography, production, or their cultural understanding, the production has an authentic voice.” 

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