Blindsight

Erik Weihenmayer is an athlete and climbing enthusiast who, in the spring of 2001, scaled the summit of Mount Everest. This would be a notable accomplishment for anyone, but Weihenmayer was different from those who had reached Everest's peak before him -- he's been blind since the age of thirteen. Weihenmayer's remarkable story came to the attention of Sabriye Tenberken, an educator who teaches blind teenagers in Lhasa, Tibet. In Tibetan culture, blindness is considered by many to be a curse, and it's not unknown for families to abandon children who are blind to the streets. Hoping to show others what her students could do, Tenberken invited Weihenmayer to Tibet to lead six teenagers on a climb of Lhakpa Ri, a peak on the northern face of Mount Everest. Weihenmayer eagerly accepted the invitation and in 2004 he joined Tenberken and her students on the adventure of a lifetime as six sightless novice climbers attempted to conquer one of the world's tallest and most challenging mountains. Documentary filmmaker Lucy Walker joined Weihenmayer for his adventure with the Tibetan students, and Blindsight is a record of what he and his charges accomplished together. Blindsight received its North American premiere at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival.