Mountain queen - The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa
She's the greatest Everest climber you’ve never heard of. MOUNTAIN QUEEN: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa tracks Lhakpa Sherpa's storied mountaineering career against her record-breaking 10th summit to reveal a rich personal history – from her childhood as a girl denied an education in rural Nepal, to her experience as an immigrant in America and survivor of intimate partner violence, to her fight to live as a fearless example to her teenage daughters. Through it all, Lhakpa climbs - her incredible strength and resilience inspired by her own mother goddess of the universe - Chomolungma, Mt. Everest.
PEABODY AWARD WINNER:
Lhakpa Sherpa lives, by most metrics, a most ordinary life. She works at her local Whole Foods, a job that’s allowed her to raise her children in the United States—which is a long way away from her native Nepal, where she first fell in love with Everest. That imposing mountain has long dominated her imagination, and turned her life from ordinary to extraordinary. Even though she knew young girls were not to aspire to such a treacherous climb, Lhakpa has always known she’s not like other girls. She’s always been wild, as she says. And that’s how, over the course of her life, she’s defied odds to summit Mount Everest a record-breaking ten times. More than merely sketch out that improbable journey (including Lhakpa’s abuse at the hands of the father of her children), Lucy Walker’s documentary on Lhakpa finds time to give viewers a front row seat to the very vibrancy this most unassuming of women corralls whenever she’s in her element, climbing that most inhospitable of mountains. For capturing the zeal and resilience of its central figure, a woman as tenacious as the peaks she climbs, Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa wins a Peabody award.
CREDITS:
Executive Producers: Sidney Kimmel, Brian Kornreich, Jo Henriquez, Scott Ratner, Amani King, Lucy Walker, Angus Wall. Producers: Charlie Corwin, Michael D. Ratner, Miranda Sherman, Dalia Burde, Christopher Newman
Co-Producers: Mark O’Connor, Terry Leonard, Kent Kubena
Associate Producers: Wendi Jonassen, Taylor Leonesio
Director: Lucy Walker
Editors: David Brodie, Tyler Temple Higgina, Yaniv Elani, Davon Ramos, Carlos Haynes, Inaya Yusuf
Cinematography: Devin Whetstone
Additional Cinematography: Matthew Irving, Drew Kass, Phillip Briggs
COLORIST: Mark Todd Osborne
Sound/Music: Adam Peters