Screened as part of NZIFF 2007

Blindsight 2006

Directed by Lucy Walker

When the first blind man to climb Mt Everest, Erik Weihenmayer, challenges six blind Tibetan school children to climb its 23,000-ft neighbour, Lhakpa Ri, failure is not an option.

UK In English, German and Tibetan with English subtitles
104 minutes 35mm

Director

Photography

Petr Cikhart
,
Keith Partridge
,
Michael Brown

Editor

Sebastian Duthy

Music

Nitin Sawhney

Festivals

Toronto, London 2006; Berlin, SXSW 2007

Elsewhere

Sabriye Tenberken runs a school for blind children in Lhasa, Tibet.

"In 2001, [she] wrote to visually impaired mountain-climber Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind man to climb Mt Everest, inviting him to visit her school. In 2004, he arrives with an entourage of helpers, determined to get six of Tenberken’s pupils – Sonam Bhumtso, Gyenshen, Dachung, Kyila, Tenzin, and Tashi Pasang – to the top of Mt Everest’s 23,000-foot neighbour, Lhakpa Ri. As the party climbs higher and struggles with altitude sickness, the weather and yak problems, deep-seated differences of attitude start to emerge. For Tenberken and [her partner] Kronenberg, and to a certain extent the Tibetans themselves, it’s the journey that matters, not gaining the top. But for Weihenmayer and his competitive-minded cohorts, anything less than total commitment spells failure. The clash between them evokes larger oppositions, between Europeans vs Americans, educationalists vs sportsmen, and so on, with the kids caught in the middle.” — Leslie Felperin, Variety