Eliza Kubarska’s Sherpa drama The Wall of Shadows is named Best Film Of the Year at Danish Nordic Adventure Film Festival. Best Nordic Film nod to Finnish Otto Heikola’s Wandering in the White while the Swedish/Danish Earning A River by Jacob Kastrup Haagensen wins Best Danish Film of the Year.
The Wall of Shadows (Germany/Switzerland/Poland) tells the story of a Sherpa family. The protagonists are Nepalese porters who decide to break the taboo by taking part in an expedition to Kumbhakarna, the sacred mountain of the Sherpas. For them, this is the only way to earn money for their son’s education and save him from dangerous mountain work. The journey to the top of one of the most difficult mountains in the world, reaching almost 8,000 metres, is only for the finest climbers. The sacred mountain confronts both the Sherpas and the mountaineers with the same ruthlessness.
The film previously won the Documentaire Extraordinaire prize at the Bergen International Film Festival and was nominated for Best International Documentary at Hot Docs 2020.
In Finnish Otto Heikola’s Best Nordic Film winner Wandering in the White two former top orienteers end up in a snowstorm in Lapland wilderness, facing an impossible orienteering task: how to reach your destination when you can’t tell earth from sky?
The Swedish/Danish Earning a River by Jacob Kastrup Haagensen is about the joy of unique nature and why people go out on demanding journeys in search of beautiful mountains and camaraderie in the wilderness.
The Nordic Adventure Film Festival which ran 24-29 November in Copenhagen and 3-4 December in Aarhus is an international celebration for fans of adventure and mountain cinema, organised since 1996. The first edition was held in Copenhagen, and its founders include local climber Jesper Ritzau and director Christian Holst. The event was created in co-operation with the Danish Film Institute. A stated aim is a focus on support for the local film industry, but also on aiding young talents and creators looking to produce films related to mountains, ecology and mountaineering.
