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Tenzing director Jennifer Peedom’s journey to bring the story of Tenzing Norgay, the too-often-forgotten Sherpa who scaled Mount Everest alongside the more credited Sir Edmund Hillary, was akin to scaling an epic mountain in its own right. And like the original 1953 feat, she achieved it with a vital assist from Norgay himself.
“My career began as an aspiring documentary filmmaker, and the jobs that helped me get into documentary filmmaking were camera-operating jobs, which happened to be on Everest,” Peedom said during a panel for the film at Deadline’s Contenders Los Angeles event Saturday. “I worked as a climbing camera operator on Everest expeditions, and through that I met many Sherpas, and I worked with the same team of Sherpas for many years.
“I then made a feature documentary about 10 years after my first trip there that followed an Everest expedition from the Sherpa’s point of view, really to highlight the disproportionate risks that Sherpas take in helping foreigners achieve their dreams,” Peedom added, recalling her acclaimed 2015 film Sherpa. “It was the aftermath of that film that led to the idea of making this film, just a recognition that this story hadn’t been told.”
Through the making of Sherpa, Peedom had met and become friendly with Norgay’s children, which led to a pivotal moment: “Norgay came to the world premiere of Sherpa, which happened to be in Sydney,” the Australian filmmaker said. “And I brought him out onstage after, and the whole audience stood to their feet. And it kind of struck me that there was just this hunger to this idea that they were touching greatness.”
She recalled: “There was something spiritual about that man and about Tenzing’s achievement. And it was really clear to, I think, both of us that the audience were hungry for this story. And it was really after that, that we kind of came at the idea at the same time because I had thought about making this film. I was nervous to ask him, and then he asked me and we both kind of came at the idea, really, together.”
“[Tenzing] is very much a story about Tenzing’s spiritual relationship to the mountain that he calls Chomolungma,” Peedom noted. “It’s also a story about family and identity and belonging and grief and an understanding of what it was that was driving Tenzing up that mountain.”
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https://deadline.com/2026/11/tenzing-director-interview-1237224117/
Erik Pedersen
Almontather Rassoul
