“Everest: The Other Side”, interview with co-director Jimmy Chin and protagonist Jim Morrison

Presented out of competition, in the Venice Open section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, Everest: The Other Side follows elite ski mountaineers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson, who fell in love while reaching the pinnacle of their sport. Their drive sharpened into a shared dream: to climb and ski Everest’s direct North Face, the most dangerous climb on the mountain and the most coveted ski line on earth. Thousands have summited via Nepal’s southeast ridge, but only a handful have reached the top by this route, and no one has ever skied down. Co-director Jimmy Chin and Jim Morrison, the film’s protagonist, talk about the technical and emotional challenge of making the film, and about facing loss through the mountains.

“The hardest film I’ve ever taken on”

For Chin, the film combined a technical challenge, filming the north side of Everest, with an even bigger emotional one: telling a story that belongs to people close to him. “This film, which I feel confident saying is the hardest film I’ve ever taken on: the big challenge is when someone entrusts their story with you, and you have a responsibility to tell it in a way that is true and accurate to their experience and to their story. And that’s hard to do.” Technically, he explains, the film drew on lessons learned making Free Solo, applied to an even riskier production: “We always think of ourselves as climbers, and Jim’s friends and supporters first, and the film’s needs never supersede Jim’s needs as a climber and a skier. Jim had to ski this 9,000-foot face where he couldn’t make a single mistake. It’s equivalent to free soloing: you can’t make a single mistake for 9,000 feet. One slip and you’re gone. So we spent a lot of time thinking about the worst case scenarios all the way through the best case scenarios, and constantly working through all the different protocols and procedures: how we’re going to film, how we’re going to climb, how we’re going to rescue.”

Nature has given so much, and taken so much

Asked about the message he’d like audiences around the world to take from a film rooted in painful loss, Morrison speaks about moving forward: “No matter what happens, and we all suffer loss of some sort and go through hard times, you can step outside and put one foot in front of the other and start moving forward, and you can achieve great things. Nature and the mountains have provided so much for me. They’ve also taken so much from me. But I like to think that to live another day and go into the mountains is a positive step forward.”

Climbing and skiing as a calling

Asked how to explain a passion that can take someone away from home and family for months at a time, Chin compares it to any other calling: “Climbing and skiing as a calling and a passion is obviously something we’ve committed our lives to, but I see it all around me all the time outside of climbing and skiing. If you are a musician, and that is what you wake up thinking about, and that is something that gives you meaning and purpose in your life, and it is an expression of who you are, how would you tell a musician not to play music? They’re compelled to do it. It can be a painter, an artist, or it can be a doctor who wants to help people with surgery. It’s a calling, and for better or worse, climbing is our calling.” What draws them back, he adds, is something more specific still: “I think that we experience the best version of ourselves, which we are able to bring back hopefully, and I think it’s also a place where we experience awe and joy. And so we like feeling awe and joy.”

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