Himalaya

Himalaya (1999) is a drama-adventure you can watch online on iFILM. Director Eric Valli, a photographer who lived for years among Nepal's mountain people, shot the whole thing at five thousand meters in the forbidden valley of Dolpo.

Every year a caravan of yaks crosses the high passes to trade salt for grain. Someone has to lead it. Aging chieftain Tinle wants the role to pass to his grandson, the way custom demands. Karma, a younger herder, refuses to wait and gathers his own column. The two groups set off separately into cold, wind and avalanches. A quarrel over authority becomes a race nobody is sure to survive.

The cast are real Dolpo villagers, not professional actors, and not a single frame was staged. France submitted the film for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The mountains here are the real thing. Stream Himalaya (1999) online on iFILM.