{"id":675821,"date":"2026-09-06T20:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T20:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/675821\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T20:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T20:19:15","slug":"oprah-moderates-discussion-of-telluride-doc-everest-the-other-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/675821\/","title":{"rendered":"Oprah Moderates Discussion Of Telluride Doc ‘Everest: The Other Side’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNo less a figure than Oprah Winfrey<\/a> appeared at the Telluride<\/a> Film Festival to moderate a conversation about Everest: The Other Side<\/a>, following the film\u2019s North American premiere on Saturday. Turns out she\u2019s a big admirer of Jim Morrison<\/a>, the primary focus of the documentary, who became the first person to scale Everest\u2019s north side and ski down it.<\/p>\n

\n\tKicking off the interview, Oprah said, \u201cPeople talk about people being \u2018one of one\u2019 all the time. You truly are one of one, the only human being on the planet Earth out of the eight plus billion of us who has done that. And even though you have done it and now you have watched yourself do it multiple times, can you still wrap your brain around what that is?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMorrison replied, \u201cIt\u2019s really hard and sitting here today watching that, it\u2019s just some incredible memories and a lot of emotion and really powerful room to watch it in. And I feel really fortunate to be sitting here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Jim<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJim Morrison climbs the north side of Everest.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNational Geographic\/Jimmy Chin<\/p>\n

\n\tMorrison easily could have been killed at any point on the ascent where avalanches regularly claim the lives of climbers. And his ski down was just as perilous \u2013 a slip would have been fatal.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf I made the smallest of errors, it was all going to be over,\u201d he told Oprah.<\/p>\n

\n\tMorrison knew the danger going in \u2013 the documentary project initially centered on the quest by him and his partner, world-class climber Hilaree Nelson, to summit Everest\u2019s north side and ski down it. But she was tragically killed in 2022 on a mountaineering trip with Morrison to Nepal\u2019s Manaslu. As she skied down, snow gave way and she plunged to her death.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI had this drive and this almost battle that I was in to get there and to succeed with Hilaree and then eventually without her and in her honor,\u201d Morrison said of the Everest mission. \u201cAnd I had failed multiple times, and I just had so much emotion caught up in is this it \u2014 am I never going to accomplish this dream?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Directors<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDirectors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi<\/a> and Jimmy Chin<\/a> introduce the North American premiere of \u2018Everest: The Other Side\u2019 at 2026 Telluride Film Festival<\/a> on September 5, 2026.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVivien Killilea\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tThe National Geographic film is directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, who won an Oscar for the mountaineering film Free Solo. Chin, himself a world-class climber, was part of the small team that ascended Everest\u2019s north side with Morrison, documenting failures and ultimate success. Vasarhelyi and Chin jetted to Telluride from Venice where they just held their world premiere.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis film took almost six years to make,\u201d Vasarhelyi told the Telluride audience as she introduced the film. \u201cIt was the most technically complex film of our careers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tChin commented, \u201cA friend once said to me, \u2018There are two great risks in life \u2013 risking too much and risking too little.\u2019 It is a fine line between deciding what kind of life is a life worth living. What is the cost of not taking the risk to truly become your best?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNelson left behind two sons from her previous marriage. Before he met Nelson, Morrison had endured the extraordinary tragedy of his wife and two young children dying in a plane crash. Oprah acknowledged she has urged Morrison to write a book about his life and experiences, because she feels convinced he has important lessons to impart.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s somebody watching this movie who\u2019s just had the worst thing that could possibly happen in their life,\u201d Winfrey noted. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be somebody who sees this movie and they can\u2019t see their way forward. You have been that person. What do you know now that you wish you could have known then or told yourself then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Oprah<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tOprah interviews Jim Morrison at the 2026 Telluride Film Festival on September 5, 2026. With them is Morrison\u2019s faithful dog, Wilson.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVivien Killilea\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve come to realize that the hardest days, the worst days, the days that feel like they\u2019re never going to end or you\u2019re not going to be able to get through the next minute, they do pass and there are bright things to come and really amazing things to come in life if you put one foot in front of another,\u201d Morrison said. \u201cTaking a deep breath and opening yourself up to what can be in the future I think is a way that we can all step forward out of loss or depression or whatever it is that\u2019s getting us down and move towards our goal with our passion, whether that\u2019s climbing Mount Everest [or something else].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDoes Oprah harbor a goal of climbing Everest? She addressed that, by first mentioning another elite climber in the audience at the premiere, Peru\u2019s Silvia Vasquez-Lavado.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy friend Silvia Vasquez\u2026 has done seven summits and is going to take a group of women to Everest next year,\u201d Oprah said. \u201cSo, Silvia asked me to be one of those women going to Everest. That will never happen. That will not be happening, but I wish you well with that struggle, Silvia.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tEverest: The Other Side heads to lower elevation for its next big event \u2013 screening at the Toronto Film Festival. The elevation ranges there (per a Google search) \u2013 between 250 and 700 feet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No less a figure than Oprah Winfrey appeared at the Telluride Film Festival to moderate a conversation about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[18,23618,117,285783,19,17,182651,23619,327,41663,26555,25194],"class_list":["post-675821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-eire","tag-elizabeth-chai-vasarhelyi","tag-entertainment","tag-everest-the-other-side","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jim-morrison","tag-jimmy-chin","tag-movies","tag-oprah-winfrey","tag-telluride","tag-telluride-film-festival"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117225951516092695","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}