Cao Zhen

    caozhen0806@126.com

    “HIMALAYA: Ladder to Paradise,” a Chinese documentary featuring the rarely examined lives of climbing guides at the extreme altitudes of Mount Everest, will open in local cinemas Friday.

    Mostly filmed in breathtaking 4K videography, the 88.48-minute documentary, which has English subtitles, focuses on a group of young professional Tibetan mountain guides at the Tibet Mountaineering Guide School in Lhasa. The school trains students who come from the foot of Mount Everest to help amateurs who pay thousands of dollars to reach the 8,848m-high summit.

    According to director Xiao Han, who didn’t summit Mount Everest himself, footage filmed on the mountain was taken by eight professional climbing guides who had been trained in videography by the film crew for three months.

    “It’s easy to teach a mountain guide to make a movie, but it’s not easy to train a videographer to climb Mount Everest. All of the filming equipment, including tripods and cameras, were carried to the summit by our videographers and two of them had been to the summit nine times when they were climbing guides,” said Xiao at the press conference in Shenzhen on Sunday.

    He also said most of the scenes were shot in 4K and footage taken above 7,000m altitudes were made in 2K videography due to equipment limitations.

    “Ladder to Paradise” takes audiences across creaking glaciers, to the sacred Rongbuk Monastery and along towering cliffs into oxygen-thin altitudes. The film also reveals how modern Tibetans’ lives change amid their experiences climbing Mount Everest. The guides provide a wide spectrum of services, including fixing ropes on the mountain, building tents two days ahead of their clients’ climbs and providing medical assistance during climbs. Yaks, respected in the eyes of Tibetans, and human porters are the only means of transport available to carry food and supplies for the climbers.

    “The mountain guides, mostly in their 20s, were born and raised in the villages at the foot of the holy mountain. They move away from the mountain to pursue modern life and later return to the mother mountain as professional guides,” said Tashi Wanggyal, videography director and one of the producers of the production.

    The documentary also presents multiple points of view from Tibetan locals.

    “We want to present real Tibetan lives while not judging anything,” said Xiao.