Oscar-Winning 'Free Solo' Directors Bring Everest Tragedy to Screen in 'The Other Side'
Oscar-winning directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi have premiered their latest documentary, 'Everest: The Other Side', at the Venice Film Festival, in the Venice Open section, out of competition (The Hollywood Reporter). The film, running 1 hour 55 minutes, is headed exclusively to cinemas and IMAX in autumn 2026, following a Disney announcement made on 13 July (Disney press release).
Chin and Vasarhelyi won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature with 2018's 'Free Solo', their film about rock climber Alex Honnold's rope-free ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite. 'Everest: The Other Side' returns them to the world of extreme alpine sport, but the stakes here turned fatal.
The documentary follows the couple Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson as they prepare to scale Mount Everest's north face — the China side — and then ski back down it. That descent had never been achieved before they attempted it (TIFF). Morrison was the first person to ski down the Hornbein Couloir, described as Everest's hardest route, on that same north face (National Geographic).
Nelson died during the expedition. A shelf of snow beneath her dislodged and slid off a nearly 6,000-foot cliff while she attempted to ski down the mountain — the world's eighth-tallest, Manaslu, according to The Hollywood Reporter's review of the film. Chin, a photographer and mountaineer who summited Everest alongside Morrison, then led a team of filmmakers to chronicle the descent (National Geographic). The film was shot for the IMAX screen (TIFF).
Chin's connection to Everest extends beyond this project. In October 2024, he led a National Geographic team believed to have found the remains of mountaineer Sandy Irvine, who vanished on the mountain in 1924 (National Geographic).
After its Venice premiere, 'The Other Side' is scheduled for its Canadian premiere at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). From there, the autumn IMAX run gives the film the largest possible canvas — a fitting format for a story set on the tallest mountain on Earth.
The festival-to-cinema corridor is a familiar path for Chin and Vasarhelyi. 'Free Solo' premiered at TIFF in 2018 before its theatrical run carried it to the Oscar stage. Whether 'The Other Side' follows that trajectory is for audiences and awards voters to decide. What is certain is that the film brings a story of ambition and loss to the big screen at a scale designed to match its subject.
