Skip to main content
Everest Dark film image; man hiking a snowy mountain

Everest Dark

This event has passed

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

Tyee logo

Community Partner

Director
Featuring

Mingma Tsiri Sherpa, Chhiring Futi Sherpa, Pasang Tenzing Sherpa

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2025

Language

In English, Sherpa and Nepali with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+
90 min
Action & Suspense BC Spotlight Documentary
Merit Motion Pictures, Killawatt Productions, Michael Bodnarchuk Productions

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

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 headshot

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

Urchin

Dir. Harris Dickinson
99 min

This impressive, award-winning debut as writer-director from actor Harris Dickinson is a probing portrait of a troubled street kid trying to get his life back on track before it's too late.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Köln 75

Dir. Ido Fluk
116 min

The true story behind the greatest solo concert in jazz history, this is Keith Jarrett's legendary 1975 Köln Concert — as organized by 18-year-old rebel music promoter Vera Brandes. Fun, inventive and feminist, it's the Bend It Like Beckham of jazz films.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Orwell: 2+2=5

Dir. Raoul Peck
119 min

Oscar-nominated director Raoul Peck reimagines 1984 in this urgent essay on power, language, and control. With narration by Damian Lewis, it’s a chilling portrait of how Orwell’s warnings became our reality.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Frankenstein

Dir. Guillermo del Toro
149 min

Frankenstein and Guillermo del Toro might have been made for each other. The movie does not disappoint, a ripping yarn of grand adventure, spectacle, hubris, passion and XXL body parts, a tale of the fantastic that rings the imagination. Screening in 35mm.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

After Life

Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
119 min

This month's Talking Pictures title is a profoundly beautiful meditation on memory and happiness from Japan, the second feature film by the acclaimed writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
More info

Sold Out

KPop Demon Hunters: A Sing Along Event

Dir. Maggie Kang & Chris Appelhans
95 min

The surprise hit of 2025, KPop Demon Hunters is a blast of good vibes and catchy tunes -- this generation's Ghostbusters, Gorillaz, or Spice Girls -- or some delightfully unholy combination of all three. Rated PG, all ages welcome!

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema