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
Blue Heron
In the late 1990s, eight-year-old Sasha and her Hungarian immigrant family relocate to a new home on Vancouver Island. Their fresh start is interrupted by increasingly dangerous behaviour from Jeremy, the family’s oldest child.
Amrum
Twelve-year-old Nanning (Jasper Billerbeck) sets himself a mission to secure bread and honey for his mother to snap her out of her depression. It is 1945. The war is all but lost, and such luxuries are not easy to find on the remote island of Amrum...
Street Hassle: Songs by Lou Reed
Guitarist Aram Bajakian takes on the Lou Reed song catalogue in this second concert of the weekend. A ticket to this show includes free admission to Faraway, So Close at 3:30 pm.