![]() Multiple documentary film crews at Base Camp filmed the avalanche and its aftermath with high-definition cameras. ![]() Plus, another pragmatic reason made the Everest storyline important: actual footage of the quake. Western hikers fight for survival in the new Netflix film. There was the need to “get bums in seats,” as Lambert says, which also loomed large. “We were always wrestling with how to balance Everest with what happened elsewhere.”īut Lambert and others also knew that the general public’s fascination with Everest would likely suck in viewers who might otherwise skip a film about the Nepalese fight for survival. “As filmmakers, we didn’t want to fall into the same trap,” Lambert says. ![]() The team spoke to a Nepalese researcher who showed them how the 22 deaths at Base Camp generated nearly 50 percent of all international headlines about the earthquake itself, and how this disparity in storytelling obfuscated the true size and scope of the disaster. There’s also some dramatic reenactment to recreate moments that were lost in time. These stories are told through interviews with the people who survived, and with amazing footage captured at each location. The third (and most tear-jerking) story takes place in a hotel in Kathmandu, operated by a reformed (and self-described) Nepalese gangster and his wife and children. Another story is set in the remote Langtang Valley, an off-the-beaten-path destination for trekkers, and it centers on three Israeli hikers and the villagers they meet along the way. The title card tips you off that one of these stories focuses on the climbers and guides who are preparing to ascend Mount Everest when the earthquake hits on the morning of April 25, 2015. The directors and producers tackle this lofty goal by weaving together three separate survival stories, set in three different locations, that all contain eerily similar elements of terror, sadness, and controversy. (Photo: Courtesy Netflix)Ĭomplete coverage of a disaster of this size and scope in one film is, of course, impossible. “You could make an entire film about the discussions we had about the title alone.” Some of the film’s best scenes play out in Kathmandu. “Literally, from day one of the production, the question we asked was how can we ensure that this huge disaster taking place in the Indian subcontinent is not framed as a load of white people bleating about their holiday going wrong,” Lambert says. I recently spoke to British filmmaker Olly Lambert, Aftershock’s director, and he said that he and the film’s producers constantly weighed how much attention to give the Everest mountaineers, and how much to give to other storylines. But Aftershock also takes viewers into crumbling buildings in downtown Kathmandu, and high into devastated villages on the other side of the country, to tell a broader story of the disaster. It tackles the question of what happens when millions of people are instantaneously placed in survival situations-do they look out for one another or themselves? Mount Everest, and the avalanche that devastated Base Camp, is of course a chapter in this story. ![]() While Aftershock is marketed as the latest Everest documentary, the film attempts to tell a story that is much larger than the world’s highest peak.Īftershock documents the horror and devastation caused by the April 2015 earthquake in Nepal that left nearly 9,000 people dead and an estimated 2.5 million homeless. As the story unfolded, I saw that there was a balancing act of a different nature at play in the film. The snippet showed a mountaineer standing precariously on a rickety ladder in the Khumbu Icefall, and as a consumer of all things Everest, I immediately clicked through and binged the film’s three episodes. Two weeks ago, I fired up Netflix, and a preview for the new docuseries Aftershock: Everest and the Nepal Earthquake flashed across the screen.
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