A bit surprised The Ghosts Above won Best Mountain Film. It seemed to document how the expedition was set up without the sherpas' understanding that they were looking for Irvine's body, rather than a summit expedition. Then went on to summit but on the descent went off to look for Irvine's body knowing full well that it would piss the sherpas off and that it meant they were at altitude for longer than expected. Not much longer but it just seemed to show massive arrogance on the part of the team and disrespect for the sherpas. Or did I miss something?

That wasn't my impression at all, I thought it was a great film albeit really depressing about the state of climbing Everest. I thought what it showed despite being pretty honest with the sherpas that on Everest you have to either fully buy in to the commercialisation bullshit or go home. I thought it was really sad that the sherpas were so against it as without the summit tick they weren't going to get any work from Chinese teams. Also a lot of respect for Renan for not going to the top.

Thinking about this a bit more - I think what the film did was excellent show how the commercialization of Everest has not only removed the independence, decision making/risk assessment process but actually forced its removal. showing how far accents like these on big peaks have become separated from some of the core values of climbing and mountaineering and that peaks, like Everest, have effectively become lost.

I thought the film did well in openly capturing many grey areas for the issues around Everest. The film-makers approached their expedition as Everest “cynics” and assumed their plan to look for Irvine without summiting would actually please the sherpas. They then learnt and reacted to the deeper complexities that the Sherpas own careers were also tied into summiting. To that extent it shows that any of our aims for the mountains are arbitrary and bound to a range of impacts on others, there’s nothing necessarily better or worse about going to the summit versus hunting for yeti etc. They also pointed out that when we look at queues to the summit in the media we guess these will be filled with bad feelings and resentment (e.g. Snowdon this year), but actually they are partly filled with psyched (if that is possible at 8000 m!) pleasant people with a shared aim trying to live their dreams (and in the end I guess on reflection, why did we expect it not to be like this?). The team get drawn into their summit bid, despite being very knowing about the politics of doing so. They take rests leaning on frozen bodies, again showing that it doesn’t matter how right minded you are, going up there leads to certain behavior: like it or not. Towards the end Renan concedes that the allure of summiting the worlds' highest Peak is significant, and something we likely have to live with rather than subjugate. This all plays out in miniature as the team member decides to go off piste while the Sherpas protest, another example of how our personal goals are blinding, whatever they focus on. Add in powerful images, and for me it was about the best film I’ve seen so far from all the Kendal offerings.