Written by new-contact on Feb 14, 2014. Posted in On Location

Everest movie films on location in Nepal

New drama feature Everest is filming on location partly in Nepal with Baltasar Kormakur as director. The film is based on the true story of separate expeditions that were scaling Everest on the same day in 1996 when a rogue storm claimed the lives of eight climbers.

Everest (below) will reportedly also film on location in the Italian Alps, which is a more accessible part of the world for productions set in the Himalayas.

In 2011 filmmaker Nick Ryan shot partly on location on the Eiger in Switzerland for his dramatic documentary The Summit, telling the story of a similarly disastrous day on the mountain K2 in Pakistan in 2008.

“It was a practical decision,” Ryan told The Location Guide, “because the Eiger offers good access to snow and glaciers on a year-round basis. It’s still a mighty challenge, though, filming in a mountainous environment like that.”

The historic 1953 ascent of Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay was recently made into dramatic documentary Beyond the Edge by filmmaker Leanne Pooley, which filmed largely on location in the more accessible Southern Alps of New Zealand.

Limited shooting did take place on Everest itself when a member of Pooley’s crew made his seventh ascent of the peak and, along with the other members of his climb team, doubled as a second unit film crew.

Everest will reportedly also film on location in the Italian Alps, which is a more accessible part of the world for productions set in the Himalayas.

However, Pooley’s main filming location was the much more accessible Tasman Glacier in New Zealand. Her team used eight different helicopters to get equipment and crew up to the filming location, aided by an experienced mountaineering firm.

A production operation of this sort is not possible in the same way on Everest, so Kormakur’s film has scheduled studio time in Italy and the UK, as well as in the Italian Alps.

(Photo: Universal Pictures)