for all screenings
Film Languages
Icelandic, Spanish, Polish
Director
Amir Bar-Lev
In THE LAST FIRST: WINTER K2, Amir Bar-Lev delivers a gripping and deeply human portrait of high-altitude ambition at its most extreme. Set during a 2021 expedition, Icelandic climber John Snorri Sigurjónsson and Pakistani father-son team Ali and Sajid Sadpara attempt an unprecedented feat: summiting K2 in winter, when the mountain is at its most lethal and unpredictable.
As they push upward, they are joined by an unlikely convergence of climbers—social media–driven adventurers, commercial clients, and Nims, a celebrity mountaineer leading a team of elite Sherpas—each bringing competing motives, resources, and philosophies to the ascent. What unfolds is not only a test of endurance, but a revealing cross-section of a rapidly changing climbing culture.
Against a backdrop of brutal conditions and mounting uncertainty, the film becomes a meditation on risk, legacy, and the true cost of ambition. As the climb intensifies, questions of access, power, and responsibility come into sharp focus, transforming a high-stakes expedition into a layered and emotionally resonant story about the limits of human will—and the consequences of pushing beyond them.
Amir Bar-Lev is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work explores complex American stories at the intersection of culture, politics, and identity. His directorial credits include FIGHTER (2001), MY KID COULD PAINT THAT (2007), the Emmy Award–winning THE TILLMAN STORY (2010), HAPPY VALLEY (2014), and LONG STRANGE TRIP (2017). He also co-produced TROUBLE THE WATER, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2008.