There are mountains people climb because they can. And then there is K2.
The second-highest mountain on Earth — and among the deadliest — K2 held one remaining prize for decades: a winter summit. Climbers called it the last great first in mountaineering.
When teams from around the world converged on the mountain to claim that prize, the story quickly became about far more than reaching the top. It became a story of ambition, national pride, commercial expeditions, social media, and a sport wrestling with who gets the glory — and who assumes the risk.
What followed would make history, and come at an enormous human cost.
In THE LAST FIRST: WINTER K2, acclaimed documentary filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev (My Kid Could Paint That, The Tillman Story) shapes extraordinary, never-before-seen footage into something far more complicated than an adventure film: a clear-eyed look at what happens when the hunger to be first meets one of the most unforgiving places on Earth.
This week we sit down with Bar-Lev to talk about the climb, the footage, the forces changing modern mountaineering — and the questions the summit didn’t answer on INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, starting now
