Apple Original Films has landed global rights to “The Last First: Winter K2” out of Sundance, the company announced Thursday.
From filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev, the official selection documentary hails from Propagate, the award-winning production and talent powerhouse founded by Ben Silverman and Howard T. Owens, West Buttermilk and producers Sean Richard of Object Studios and Sarah Thomson and John Battsek of Ventureland.
The latest documentary from filmmaker Bar-Lev, who directed “My Kid Could Paint That,” premiered as part of the Premieres section, with the director returning to the festival after “The Tillman Story” (from 2010), “Happy Valley” (from 2014) and “Long Strange Trip” (from 2017) for one last go-around in Park City, Utah.
According to the official Sundance programming logline, “The Last First: Winter K2” “tells a complex, harrowing and moving story that unpacks the industry of extreme mountain climbing and its changing culture.” It chronicles a 2021 expedition that left five dead, when mountaineers John Snorri Sigurjónsson, an Icelander, and Pakistani father-son team Ali and Sajid Sadpara were joined by “influencer climbers and their film crews, commercial expedition clients, and Nims, a Nepalese celebrity mountaineer, and his team of Sherpas.”
Following its premiere at the festival, the film has been hailed as a “gripping,” “engrossing,” “absolutely stunning” and “perfect, surprisingly complicated documentary.”
“At its core, this is a profoundly human story about the cost of ambition and the people left searching for answers,” Silverman and Owens said in a statement. “Amir approaches the film with empathy and precision, and we’re honored to see it reach a worldwide audience through Apple TV after such a powerful Sundance debut.”
Executive producers on the film include Drew Buckley, James Packer, Will Kane, Amir Bar-Lev, Taylor Levin, Kerstin Emhoff and Ali Brown. The film was edited by Joe Carey with Will Pugh serving as director of photography, and music by Tom Hodge.
