PERTH: A Perthshire man’s film about Sherpas in Nepal has been making waves across the globe.
James Lamb, who lives in Little Dunkeld, has made a documentary film called ‘Sherpas Speak’ with the BAFTA award-winning filmmaker Richard Else.
Not only has the film won the people’s choice award at the Dundee Mountain Film Festival, but it is also to be shown at the Trento Film Festival in Italy and the pair have been invited to screen it at the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival.
For the last few years, James has split his time between Perthshire and Nepal where he runs a trekking business called Tengboche Trekking with a local monk called Tashi Lama, and a charity called The Little Sherpa Foundation.
He spends his time in the Asian country trying to rebuild the Sherpa communities affected by an avalanche that hit Mount Everest in 2014, and the devastating Gorkha earthquake which struck a year later, killing 9000 people.
The film saw James and Richard traveling out to Nepal to capture what life is like for the Sherpa people, an indigenous group who live 4000 meters above sea level, using guides from Inspire Trek and Travel.
James said: “The film has done incredibly well.
“We won the people’s choice award at the Dundee Mountain Film Festival.
“To be the only film of all the ones submitted and watched to be chosen is really big.
“We have submitted the film to Trento, the oldest mountain film festival in the world, and Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival has asked us to submit the film too – just to be invited is huge.”
James said the film is important not only because it raises money for his charity, but because it spreads awareness of who the Sherpa
people are.
He continued: “Richard Else and I put the film together.
“When we went out to Nepal to do the filming, I was doing the interviews – because of the charity work I do out there, the Sherpa people trust me.
“It is all about Sherpa life, what pressures they have, their worries, and about their cultures and beliefs.
“The Sherpa people have narrated the film as well.
“There is no one else in the film apart from Sherpas, so it is the only film of its kind in the world that we know of.
“It is important because people think Sherpas are just climbers, particularly if you go to America or Canada – I still know people who have been out to the Himalayas and trekked and climbed with them, and still don’t know they are an indigenous group of people.
The film is also raising money for James’s The Little Sherpa Foundation.
The music in ‘Sherpas Speak’ was written and performed by fellow Dunkeld resident Dougie Maclean, who along with Jamie Maclean is currently writing an album inspired by the film to try and raise even more money.
One of the next projects James is looking to take on is to build an earthquake-resistant primary school and he is also hoping to bring running water to a village of 550 people.
James and Richard are both now looking to make more documentaries on the Sherpa people in Nepal, and are hoping to go back out later this year to do even more filming.
(with inputs from Daily Record)
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