PIMFF 2025 Selection
Below Zero (2024)
Country: United Kingdom
Duration: 11 minutes
Language: English
Synopsis: Our story features seasoned ultra endurance athlete Jenny Tough as she returns to competing in the Arctic circle. It’s not a story about suffering but about gratitude, it’s not about pushing the body and mind into a place you can’t return from but embracing a holistic approach to adventure – embracing the camaraderie on the trail, celebrating the strength in our bodies, finding meaning in the struggle, and appreciating the wild places we get to explore.
Directed by: Ellie Green
Ellie Green is co-founder of Summit Fever Media, an adventure film production company based in Cumbria, UK. We specialise in capturing raw and emotional narratives of human perseverance and extreme endeavours in wild and inhospitable locations and on remote expeditions.
Bushido: The Choice (2025)
Country: Poland
Duration: 29 minutes
Language: Japanese, Polish
Synopsis: BUSHIDO. The Choice. A veteran alpinist seeks a new path on Alaska’s icy big walls. Shadowed by an undefined spiritual presence, he confronts the symbols of Japanese and Buddhist culture in a quest for meaning.
Directed by: Marcin “Yeti” Tomaszewski
Marcin “Yeti” Tomaszewski (b. 1975) is a Polish big-wall climber, instructor, photographer, author, and PZA National Team member. He’s also published children’s audio stories with Góry Books and leading Polish theatres.
Climbing Tirich Mir: The King of Shadows (2025)
Country: Pakistan
Duration: 45 minutes
Language: English, Urdu, Khowar
Synopsis: On the 75th anniversary of humankind scaling the tallest mountain in the Hindukush mountain range, an expedition of local Chitrali mountaineers heads to the slopes of the King of Shadows again. Will they become the first local mountaineers to successfully overcome the perilous climb?
Directed by: Wajahat Malik
Wajahat is a popular television presenter, adventurer, travel and tourism expert, and documentary filmmaker. For more than 15 years, he has been producing, presenting, and directing adventure and travel films for Pakistani and foreign channels. Wajahat founded his film production company Eyebex Films in Islamabad in 2006. He also serves as the founder and Chairman of the Pakistan International Mountain Film Festival, which is only the third mountain film festival in Asia. Wajahat is known more recently for his record-setting responsible tourism and environmentally conscious campaigns of “Rickshaw Diary” and “Expedition Indus.”
Coexist (2021)
Country: Iran
Duration: 12 minutes
Language: Persian
Synopsis: On Hormuz Island, blind boat captain Dela keeps an ancient bread-making culture alive using three elements of the island-fish he “hears” in the sea, natural salt, and edible soil, amid rising U.S.–Iran tensions.
Directed by: Komeil Soheili
Komeil Soheili is a lecturer and documentary filmmaker focused on social and environmental stories. He has worked internationally as director/producer/cinematographer, holds an MA in Cultural Studies & Media, and has taught at universities and film events. He has served as a juror at the Busan Art Film Festival and on the Asia Peace Film Festival selection committee.
Odyssea Borealis (2024)
Country: Italy
Duration: 44 minutes
Language: English, French, Italian
Synopsis: Four modern explorers challenge the icy waters of eastern Greenland in an epic 300-kilometer odyssey. Their goal: to scale the untouched northwest face of Drøneren, standing 1,200 meters high. Driven by the primal instinct of exploration, these modern Odysseuses are not seeking conquest, but the pure essence of adventure.
Directed by: Alessandro Beltrame
Alessandro Beltrame, owner of AGB studio video practices mountaineering, rock and ice climbing, speleology, biking, diving, and alpine skiing. Long-experienced cameraman and author, he has over a hundred productions to his credit for institutions, national and international TVs, expeditions, and documentaries all over the world.
.
Parallel World (2024)
Country: Bulgaria
Duration: 22 minutes
Language: Bulgarian
Synopsis: After his daughter’s birth, a tectonic shift in priorities casts an alpinist into the safer realm of high grade Dry Tooling. Seeking to reconcile fatherhood and a high athletic pursuit, he ends up in the shadow of one of the biggest rock roofs in the climbing world. Above him, the unending sky of limestone shelters one of the hardest lines of our times: Parallel World.
‘
Directed by: Aleksandar Valchev
Aleksandar Valchev is a filmmaker and photographer specialising in capturing stories in extreme environments. Starting as a passionate climber, he transitioned into filmmaking and photography, working on both commercial projects as well as on various climbing and scientific expeditions across the world.
Real Grit: No Friends But the Mountains (2024)
Country: Australia
Duration: 46 minutes
Language: English
Synopsis: Serge journeys into Iraq to attempt what no paraglider has done—hike and fly the Zagros Mountains, risking landmines, militant fire, and arrest. He discovers the Kurdish proverb: “No friends but the mountains.”
Directed by: Ben Whimpey
Ben directed his first film at 7 with LEGO pirates. With a performing-arts background and a decade at Stage School Australia, he understands actors’ needs. Named a 2017 Screen Producers Australia “One to Watch,” his energetic style appears in Tropfest finalist The Hustle (2016) and The Proposal (Best Action, Philadelphia Film Festival, 2019).
Red (2024)
Country: Iran
Duration: 8 minutes
Language: Persian
Synopsis: The birth of first love—two mature teens face their first obstacle with unbridled zeal.
Directed by: Shahoo Ahmadi
Kurdish-Iranian filmmaker and a graduate of Sorsh University, Kurdistan. His previous short film “Wick” has been screened in multiple festivals and has received acclaim.
Samuel Volery: The Slackline Legend (2025)
Country: Netherlands, Switzerland
Duration: 29 minutes
Language: English
Synopsis: The Greatest slackliner of all time? Big chance Samuel Volery comes to mind. Since 2010, when slacklining has become more popular as a mountain sport, Samuel Volery has been pushing the field of possibilities with highlining.
Directed by: Jonas Konijnenberg
Jonas Konijnenberg is photo and filmmaker from the Netherlands. Even though he grew up in a flat country, his most passionate work lies in the mountains. Jonas started his movie career as an athlete himself. As a professional slackliner in the 2010s, he has played in multiple short movies.
Sinai Trail – Bedouin Tradition (2024)
Country: United States
Duration: 17 minutes
Language: English
Synopsis: Musallem Abu Faraj has been guiding treks through the mountains of South Sinai for decades. For hundreds of years, the Bedouin have guided pilgrims in the area – to sites such as Mount Moses, where the prophet is said to have received the Ten Commandments, and also merchants along routes linking the ancient Silk Road in the Far East to the Mediterranean. Ten years ago, eight Bedouin tribes came together to create the Sinai Trail, a 340-mile set of trails crisscrossing South Sinai, to preserve both their traditions and the natural environment.
Directed by: Francis Mead
Francis is currently a freelance, independent director. My earlier experience is as follows: Filmmaker, United Nations – based out of New York, NY • UN Video: director/producer of documentaries, campaign videos. and explainers. He has filmed all around the world.
The Future of Climbing (2025)
Country: France
Duration: 52 minutes
Language: English, French, Italian, Spanish
Synopsis: With the rise in the number of private climbing gyms and climbing’s inclusion in the Olympics, this rapidly changing sport now faces a truly unique dilemma: the increase in popularity of indoor climbing gyms alongside the current threat of closures for outdoor climbing areas all over the world. Starring Cédric Lachat, this documentary film explores the evolution of climbing and the legacy left for future generations.
Directed by: Guillaume Broust
Guillaume Broust is an award-winning filmmaker with more than 20 years of experience in outdoor films and documentaries. With over 200 films featuring climbing, paragliding, mountaineering, and skiing, as well as a number of awards to his name, Guillaume has created his own style and cinematographic universe.
The Headless Horseman (2024)
Country: France
Duration: 41 minutes
Language: French
Synopsis: Deception and illness. Separation and doubt. Icy cold, abyssal emptiness, and lurking death. In the merciless snows of the Himalayas, Charles Dubouloz and Symon Welfringer discover that the joy of life can be found, perhaps above all, on these perilous paths.
Directed by: Andy Collet
Sport has always held a unique power for Andy — the ability to transform. Andy is a former freestyle skier, and now a trail runner. Ski taught him to dream and think creatively, while trail running instilled discipline and mental strength. Sport is about connecting, growing, and sharing a passion that opens perspectives.
The Luck of the Draw (2024)
Country: Sweden
Duration: 29 minutes
Language: English
Synopsis: Sixteen paddlers journey by packraft through the Grand Canyon—where winning a launch permit can be as hard as running its rapids.
Directed by: Jacob Kastrup Haagensen
A Danish-born outdoor filmmaker and packrafting pioneer since 2012, Jacob’s debut Inflatable People (2016) won a Debutant Film Award; Earning a River (2020) and later works have screened globally.
Sport is about connecting, growing, and sharing a passion that opens perspectives.
The Melting of the Glaciers (2025)
Country: Pakistan, Switzerland
Duration: 29 minutes
Language: English
Synopsis:
The year 2025 was declared the year of glaciers with the UN assigned theme “ Glaciers Matter for Water, Food and Livelihoods in Mountains and Beyond.“ In the month of May, Blatten, a mountain village in Switzerland, had a huge mountain slide that destroyed the whole village, while in Pakistan, similar incidents occurred in Ghizer and Gulmit. This film explores the phenomenon of the melting of glaciers in the context of climate change.
Directed by: Khalid Mehmood
Mr. Khalid Mehmood has vast experience in mountain photography. His experience spans over one decade and his photographs and documentaries have won acclaim at both national and international levels.
Wings Underfoot (2024)
Country: Germany
Duration: 24 minutes
Language: English
Synopsis:
What began as a quest for a physical challenge and a tough multi-pitch climbing project on the walls of Sardinia quickly evolved into a substantively formative experience for climber Ola. Testing her physical abilities takes her to her inner and outer limits, which she surprisingly overcomes.
Directed by: Sven Ott
Director Sven Ott from Freiburg, Germany, presents his debut with WINGS UNDERFOOT. After completing a master’s degree in philosophy, Sven works as a climbing instructor, author, and photographer. His passion for climbing takes him through the climbing areas of Europe all year round.