Every year, hundreds of climbers chase glory atop the world’s highest peak, but few stop to ask what Mount Everest has become. In Everest Dark, filmmaker Jereme Watt shifts the lens toward the Sherpa people, whose spiritual ties to the mountain run much deeper than the ambitions of tourists. At the center is Mingma Tsiri Sherpa, a national hero and devout Buddhist, who returns from retirement to carry out a perilous mission: to recover the bodies of fallen climbers, complete sacred rites, and restore harmony to Chomolungma, the “Mother Goddess of the World”.
Shot under extreme conditions, Everest Dark combines breathtaking aerial cinematography with a deeply human portrait of reverence, grief, and resistance. Featuring narration from Mingma’s father, a runner for Sir Edmund Hillary, the film confronts Everest’s transformation into a capitalist graveyard and reclaims its sanctity through ancestral care. Watt’s years of collaboration with Mingma yield a film that is both visually astonishing and spiritually grounded — a rare testament to Indigenous stewardship at the edge of the world.
Oct 4 & 5: Q&A
Presented by
Media Partner
Community Partner
Mingma Tsiri Sherpa, Chhiring Futi Sherpa, Pasang Tenzing Sherpa
Canada
2025
In English, Sherpa and Nepali with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Ina Fichman, Merit Jensen Carr, Michael Bodnarchuk, Jereme Watt
Producer
Merit Jensen Carr, Michael Bodnarchuk, Jereme Watt
Cinematography
Kylie Sandilands
Editor
Joni Church, Alan Flett
Original Music
Colin Aguliar
Jereme Watt
Jereme Watt is an award-winning director with over 20 years of experience and more than 150 documentary episodes for Discovery and History channels. Known for his ability to draw powerful stories from complex characters, he spent the last decade filming renowned mountaineer Mingma Tsiri Sherpa in Nepal. His debut feature documentary, produced with Oscar-nominated Ina Fichman and a world-class team, follows one man’s extraordinary mission to recover a fallen body and bring peace to the mountain and his people.
Filmography: The Animated (2020)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Nutcracker at Wethersfield
Back in the long, dark Covid winter of 2020, there was no way the New York City Ballet could mount their traditional Christmas production of Tchaikovsky's fairytale. But choreographer Troy Schumacher had a dream to save the show -- reimagining a classic.
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.
North of Ourselves
In the depths of winter, two adventurers set out to cross Quebec from one end to the other on bike and skis, exploring its staggering geography and meeting its inhabitants (human and otherwise) along the way.
Dean Thiessen Plays Vince Guaraldi + Charlie Brown
In 1965 jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi created the perfect soundtrack to Charles Schultz's beloved Peanuts. Dean Thiessen's 5-tet pays tributes to Guaraldi's catchy tunes, followed by a screening of the first Charlie Brown feature film.
Pictures of Ghosts
A companion piece to Mendonça Filho's The Secret Agent, Pictures of Ghosts is a lovely, relaxed, ruminative riff on movies, memory, the imaginative space conferred by that place we call Cinema, seasoned with love and boundless anecdotes.
It's a Wonderful Life
Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. This Christmas classic is whimsical, sure, but it has the depth to stand up to multiple watches, and it really should be a communal experience, because that is what it's about.