Joe Simpson, whose battle for survival featured in Touching the Void, travels to the Eiger to tell the story of one of mountaineering’s most epic tragedies. Toni Kurtz was a brilliant mountaineer who in 1936 tried to be the first to conquer the Eiger. The climb started well, but disaster struck and Kurtz’s climbing colleagues were killed, leaving him alone and fighting for his life. The Beckoning Silence recounts Kurtz’s heroic battle for survival but it also forces Simpson to confront some fundamental questions of his own. Why continue climbing when you have come so close to oblivion?

Appeared in Daytime Film Screenings — Program A on November 3 and 4.