by Erin Free
Director Jennifer Peedom and producers Emile Sherman and Liz Watts scaled some serious mountains in the making of the poetic biopic Tenzing.
“With every film or TV project, you really feel like you’ve scaled a mountain, but Tenzing really was the Everest of productions,” said producer Emile Sherman at The Ritz Cinema in Sydney, where the mountaineering adventure biopic screened to an enthusiastic crowd of cast, crew, media and friends.
A mix of breathtaking visuals and intimate personal detail, Tenzing is the story of the late Tenzing Norgay, the Nepalese-Indian Sherpa mountaineer who joined the considerably more well documented New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary as the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953. Shot on location in Nepal and New Zealand against a stunning range of glacial backdrops, Tenzing is the debut feature film from Australian documentary director Jennifer Peedom, who has made her name with artful, visually evocative, nature-themed documentaries like Solo (2008), River (2021) and Deeper (2025).
“Nobody craves integrity like Jen Peedom,” said Sherman. “She’s an inspirational leader. Like Tenzing Norgay himself, she believes in bringing people together and has a deep and abiding respect for the natural world.”
Though Tenzing marks her first feature, Peedom has cinematically scaled Everest before in the docos Sherpa (2015) and Miracle on Everest (2008) along with a host of the world’s other highest peaks in Mountain (2025). “Jenn made us all follow her up the mountain with this film, in the best possible way,” said Tenzing producer Liz Watts. “Jen is a true marvel. She’s a born storyteller, with the curiosity to tell this story with such intimacy and emotion while capturing the very essence of the majestic landscapes. I know that means so much, and it inspired us all.”
Despite its international cast (Genden Phuntsok as Tenzing, Tom Hiddleston as Edmund Hillary, Willem Dafoe as John Hunt, Johnny Flynn as George Mallory), Tenzing is very much an Australian-driven film, with a script by Luke Davies (Candy), and locals right across the crew. “It’s great to be back in Sydney where the film began and ended,” said Liz Watts. “It’s really been an undertaking made by people from all around the world … Australia, America, England, China. It took an extraordinary amount of resilience and good humour to bring it to the big screen, and the entirety of the cast and crew had it in abundance. I’ve never heard so many people saying how much they enjoyed the whole process. That said, the film has had a huge impact on the personal lives of everyone involved with it. That’s very meaningful. Everyone’s work really shines on this film.”
With the film made in cooperation with members of Tenzing Norgay’s family, Peedom thanked those whose role in the filmmaking process is an often forgotten one. “Making films asks a lot of families,” the director said. “There are missed weekends, changed plans and months of absences when someone else has to carry much more than their fair share. I want to acknowledge the families, partners and children who made their own sacrifices so we could go off and make this film. Making Tenzing has been one of the great adventures of my life.”
Tenzing is screening in select cinemas now and is also streaming on Apple TV
