Tenzing opens Zurich Film Festival with Sherpa view of 1953 Everest climb

Tenzing, a new historical drama about the 1953 Mount Everest ascent, is opening the Zurich Film Festival today after a run on the major festival circuit. The film centres on Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, who reached the summit with Sir Edmund Hillary, and it challenges the traditional telling of the expedition as a mainly British triumph.

Set during the 1953 British Mount Everest expedition, the film gives more weight to Tenzing's role in the historic climb. In Britain, news of the feat arrived on the eve of coronation day in 1953 and was widely seen as a great British achievement. The cast includes Tom Hiddleston as Edmund Hillary and Tibetan actor Jindin pencil as Tenzing. They have been promoting the picture with Australian director Jennifer Peedom, who is making her first narrative feature.

Peedom said she wanted to show a different side of the story. Tenzing, she noted, was one of the people who helped achieve the feat for the British, but he had always been a supporting character rather than the hero of that narrative. The film aims to redress that balance and to look at what the ascent meant for him.

The movie also contrasts the approaches of the British expedition members and the Himalayan Sherpa community. For the British, Everest was a mountain to be conquered. For Tenzing and the Sherpa community, it was sacred, the abode of a goddess. The film presents mountains and landscapes as the living embodiment of their gods for local people, while for Westerners they are symbols of achievement. Scenes describe the mountains as bones and the Sherpas as blood, a different relationship to landscape.

Tenzing had its Canadian premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival less than a month after landslides and flash floods caused huge devastation in the Nepal Tibet region, not far from where the Everest epic is set. The film is seen as offering a positive and respectful portrait of Tenzing Norgay, Edmund Hillary and the local population. Producer Ian Canning said he hoped the film could help bring that part of the world's culture to audiences and convey how turbulent and unpredictable the environment and landscape can be.

The cinematography is striking. The mountain climbing sequences, shot in Nepal and New Zealand, come across as authentic. The film tells the story of Tenzing, a man who contributed mightily to what was perceived as a great British triumph, and it may help audiences understand his perspective and view mountains and mother nature in a different way.