Award-winning filmmaker Kevin McDonald’s latest film is a gripping account of a dramatic, true story.
In 1985 two young English climbers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, set out to scale the 21,000 foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. Their climb to the summit is straightforward, but disaster strikes on their way down when Simpson falls and breaks his leg. The two devise a method to lower him down by rope, 150 feet at a time. This works until Simpson loses his footing, falls and is left hanging by the rope in mid-air.
Yates, believing that his colleague is almost certainly dead, holds on for as long as he can until he realises that he must make the terrible decision to cut the rope and return to camp. This he does, but what follows is the amazing account of how Simpson, against all the odds, manages to survive.