Inclusive Narratives in Adventure Documentaries
Last night while attending the No Man’s Land Film Festival — Bloomington, IN, an all-woman adventure film festival, I watched one short film that really, really resonated with me. It was called “Mothered by Mountains”, about Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita (Nepal’s leading female mountain guide) and Kathmandu-native Sareena Rai (a punk-rock Nepali icon) on a first ascent while redefining “female badassery”.
I have seen a multitude of adventure and mountaineering films about people who climb Mount Everest, an idolized feat that only a few thousand have ever accomplished — but I have NEVER seen a movie about Everest that not only features, but actually completely centers on Nepali mountaineers, much less Nepali mountaineers who are women. These types of adventure and risk films typically center around the survival story of the average white man or woman — a very odd media misrepresentation when considering the disproportionate risk that Sherpas need to take in guiding tourists and climbers up to the top and back down. They do most of the work; it’s dangerous job with unjust minimal pay despite the poor conditions and inherent risks involved, but they depend on the climbing industry for an income to support their families (the disparity and tension between wealthy Westerners and Sherpa guides, if you’re interested, is nicely depicted in another great film called “Sherpa”.) It’s strange to me that most of their stories will never be told just because they don’t have the means to capture it on expensive camera equipment. All they get is, if lucky, a few lines of dialogue in someone else’s feature film about their ascent.
I thought a lot about this when I, too, became a culprit to excluding locals from the narrative while traveling in Peru. During the hike up Rainbow Mountain, I caught severe altitude sickness during the trek up to the 17,000 ft summit but luckily received help from one Peruvian who had climbed the mountain hundreds of times (it’s child’s play, he told me). I wouldn’t be able to tell you his name, his story, or anything about his own experiences because I was so focused on my own desire to reach the peak. To me, it was a moment in a privileged once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; to him, it’s life itself.
It’s very, very easy to discredit (and take advantage of) ethnic groups and disregard their experiences and endeavors while you’re living out your own. It’s easy to erase their narrative, especially in these sorts of lucrative films. But it’s so refreshing to see their stories shared and be heard in cinematography when they actually have an opportunity to tell it. And as a Nepali woman who has very few role models and representation in the outdoors community, it’s so incredibly inspiring and EMPOWERING to see films like “Mothered by Mountains”. Thanks to No Man’s Land for including someone else’s story — and diversifying the genre of adventure filmography.
