Everest: The Other Side - Co-directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Jimmy Chin)

Everest: The Other Side chronicles an epic story of two elite ski mountaineers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson who fell deeply in love while reaching the pinnacle of their sport. Their drive sharpened into a shared dream: to climb and ski the direct North Face of Everest — the most difficult and dangerous climb on the mountain and the most coveted ski line on Earth. Thousands have summited the mountain via Nepal's southeast ridge, but only a handful have ever reached the top by this route, and no one has successfully skied down. Already known for their extraordinary feats in the mountains and no strangers to loss, Morrison and Nelson stake everything on this daunting challenge. From National Geographic Documentary Films and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin — the Oscar® -winning filmmakers behind Free Solo and Meru — Everest: The Other Side is an intimate portrait of two people bound by love, ambition and the pursuit of the impossible. About the filmmaker - Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is an Academy® Award-winning filmmaker with a storied history of critically acclaimed films. In 2019, she, along with co-director and co-producer Jimmy Chin, was awarded the Academy® Award and a BAFTA for Best Documentary Feature for “Free Solo,” an intimate, unflinching portrait of rock climber Alex Honnold. The film also received seven primetime Emmy® Awards. In 2023, she co-directed her first scripted feature, “Nyad” for NETFLIX, which saw both stars Annette Bening and Jodie Foster receive Academy Award nominations. More recently, she directed and produced “Love+War” for National Geographic Documentary Films, about acclaimed war photographer Lynsey Addario, and “Lost in the Jungle,” the incredible true story of four children who survived a plane crash in the Colombian jungle. The latter film won the Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary Emmy for 2025. In 2021, she co-directed the BAFTA and DGA nominated documentary “The Rescue,” chronicling the enthralling, against-all-odds story that transfixed the world in 2018: the daring rescue of 12 boys and their coach from deep inside a flooded cave in northern Thailand. Other projects include “Return to Space”, about SpaceX and NASA’s first joint spaceflight, which hit the Top 10 on Netflix’s most-watched films list, and the series “Edge of the Unknown” for National Geographic. Vasarhelyi was also honored with a Peabody and a News & Documentary Emmy Award for co-directing and producing the acclaimed National Geographic series“Photographer.” Her feature “Meru” won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015 and was on the 2016 Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary Feature. Vasarhelyi’s other films as a director include “Incorruptible” (Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award 2016); “Youssou N’dour: I Bring What I Love” (Oscilloscope, 2009), which premiered at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals; “A Normal Life” (Tribeca Film Festival, Best Documentary 2003); and “Touba” (SXSW, Special Jury Prize Best Cinematography in 2013). Vasarhelyi has directed two New York Times Op Docs, two episodes of Netflix’s nonfiction design series “Abstract” and two episodes of ESPN’s nonfiction series “Enhanced.” She has received grants from the Sundance Institute, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bertha Britdoc and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a member of the DGA, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and she holds a bachelor’s in comparative literature from Princeton University. Vasarhelyi lives in New York City with her children, daughter, Marina, and son, James.