Documentary Film Nepal – »Lost« and Found Again

SLOVENIA, March 31 - Slovenians are traditionally a mountaineering nation, a fact most clearly demonstrated by the first Slovenian feature docudrama V kraljestvu Zlatoroga (In the Realm of the Goldhorn). The second Slovenian feature film, Triglavske strmine (The Slopes of Triglav), also explored mountaineering-related theme, and the tradition of films featuring hills, mountains and pristine nature continues to follow these ideas; as a result, the number of mountaineering films and recordings preserved by the Slovenian Film Archives at the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia is quite substantial. A special segment of films also preserved at the Slovenian Film Archives are films documenting Slovenian and Yugoslav expeditions in Himalayas. This segment consists of footage taken by various members of the expeditions such as Vanja Matijevec, Peter Markič, Stipe Božič, and – perhaps the most important among the filmmakers and Himalayan climbers – Aleš Kunaver. The latter grew up in a family of scouts, cave explorers, and astronomers, and went on to dedicate his life to alpinism, development of mountain climbing techniques and equipment, organization of mountaineering, international cooperation in this field, and, above all, to education of climbers and Sherpas.

Aleš Kunaver and Zoran Jerin were members of the first Yugoslav expedition to the Himalayas in 1960. From the footage taken by Kunaver during the expedition, Matjaž Klopčič later directed the film titled Vzpon na Trisul (Ascent of Trisul). In 1962, when no Yugoslav expedition to high mountains were planned, Jerin and Kunaver embarked on a 600 kilometres long journey through the valleys of Nepal beneath the Himalayas between Katmandu in Nepal and Darjeeling in India. They set out at the end of October 1962 and returned at the end of February 1963.

Zoran Jerin documented their journey in his book Vzhodno od Katmanduja (East of Katmandu), while Aleš Kunaver carried with him a 35 mm camera ariflex, capturing stunning footage of the land, mountains, people and life in mountain valleys, which he intended to use for his documentary film upon returning home. Despite the difficult filming conditions, the remoteness of the area, and complications at the border, he managed to bring with him to the foot of the Himalayas a six-kilogram camera, film reels and an accumulator. He assembled the latter from a series of nine flat Zmaj batteries, which he kept warm against the freezing cold using his own body heat. He eventually managed to record almost all the film tape he had brought with him before the battery died. He travelled with his footage back home, intending to edit it into a documentary film. However, this is where the strange story of the film truly starts.

“Although the viewing of the roughly edited footage at the Triglav Film a couple of months later was accompanied by many “oh” and “ah” exclamations, there was no money for the grand finale. Who knows where those two reels of our first film about Nepal and the Sherpas ended up? And not only the film on Sherpas, the film about Trisul is lost as well.”

This is a citation taken from the book on Aleš Kunaver that his wife Dušica Kunaver published four years after her husband’s tragic death in a helicopter accident over Blejska Dobrava in 1984. The book is an extraordinary collection of documents on Aleš Kunaver and his fellow climbers, their testimonies and, above all, Kunaver’s personal notes. Among these there is also a directorial draft for the “Documentary film Nepal”.

Unfortunately, the film was not completed at the time. Developed and roughly edited it remined on the shelf in the studio of Triglav Film for over three decades. After the denationalization of the Church of St. Joseph in the Poljane Area in Ljubljana and the subsequent moving of the records from the studio of Viba Film (which Triglav Film joined in 1975) to the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia in 1996, the footage was discovered by our colleagues Lojz Tršan and Aleksander Blaznik. Upon the examination and comparison, Blaznik determined that the film he was examining was not Vzpon na Trisul, but the footage for the “lost” film, labelled Nepal ’62 on the reel. It soon became clear that this was indeed the lost film by Aleš Kunaver.

Kunaver’s film was first screened in 2005 under the title Dežela šerp (Land of the Sherpas). It was directed by Matjaž Žbontar and produced by Fatamorgana. The 20-minute-long film follows Kunaver’s directorial draft entirely and the editing of the shots corresponds to the directorial descriptions. Out of nearly 28 minutes of recorded and preserved material, 20 minutes were used in the final film.

Slovenian Film Archives keeps a sizable collection of films on mountaineering and footage taken during Himalayan expeditions. Some of this film material is shot on 35 mm and 16 mm film tape, but most of it is on 8 mm film tape. Preserved in our custody is film material from many expeditions to Trisul, Manang, Mount Everet, Lhotse, Manaslu, Anapurna, as well as those to Hindu Kuš, the Andes and the rest of the high mountain ranges.

In terms of the scope and the quality of these recordings, those taken by Aleš Kunaver and donated to the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia by his wife Dušica Kunaver, really stand out. Recordings from Himalayan expeditions are generally unedited but hold a great documentary value. They show how a visitor and a climber views the mountains and his fellow climbers during their climb, while at the same time capturing the rhythm of life high beneath the mountain peaks.

Primož Tanko

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