Beat Michel

Norman Dyhrenfurth, 90, tells for the first time the extraordinary story of his parents, husband and wife mountaineers and filmmakers Hettie and Günter Dyhrenfurth, and their 1930s expeditions to the Himalayas (Kanchenjunga, Hidden Peak). These family expeditions equalled those of their state-sponsored Nazi rivals and beat them in setting world climbing records. In doing so, the Dyhrenfurths took the first moving pictures at high altitude. Norman himself put the first Americans on top of Mount Everest in 1963 and led the first traverse of an 8000-metre peak. Through engaging interviews, Chris Bonington and Reinhold Messner put the Dyhrenfurth expeditions into contemporary context and convey an intense compassion for the heroic achievements and tragic failures of this family.