Making my debut feature documentary about four of the world’s greatest rock climbers was a thrilling proposition. The film’s culmination was due to centre on the Tokyo Olympics, the first time climbing had ever featured at the Games. The stakes were off the chart. Four emotionally rich stories, a dramatic narrative arc, a plethora of international locations, and a year to make it all happen. Then the pandemic hit…
We began filming The Wall – Climb for Gold in Summer 2019, following our cast of climbers in Japan as they qualified for the Olympics: Janja Garnbret from Slovenia, Shauna Coxsey from the UK, Brooke Raboutou from the US and Miho Nonaka from Japan. I was immediately struck by their exceptional strength and talent.
Next followed a flurry of shoots, capturing as much of these women’s lives as I could – climbing competitions in Germany and Slovenia, a back-story shoot with Brooke in San Diego, USA, before finishing the Winter season filming Janja scale the stunning rock faces of the Catalonian mountains in Spain. As Christmas approached, the first act of the film was taking shape in the edit.
But soon, March 2020 arrived and the first signs of the pandemic were upon us. For the climbers, whose lives revolve around huge competitions with thousands of fans and relentless international travel, the effect was instantaneous. Brooke, our American climber, fled the UK for home, narrowly missing the US flight ban. Slovenia and the UK went into full lockdown. Japan was soon to follow. The next time I saw each of them would be on grainy Zoom calls.
News came through that the 2020 climbing season was to be postponed indefinitely, and as broadcasters and investors across the industry put the brakes on, our film’s production officially ground to a halt. Then came the biggest news for the athletes – the Olympics would be delayed for a year, possibly even cancelled. A frantic 48 hours ensued trying to capture the unfolding drama, from my living room, via Zoom interviews and phone-calls.
As the weeks passed, concerns grew. The pandemic itself was a huge turning point for the athletes – their whole lives and careers had led them to the Olympics, and months and years of preparation were dissolving to nothing without the ability to maintain training. Worse still, what would they do if the Games were cancelled altogether? My thoughts were with them, but also on what that would mean for the climax of the film. The climbers were all battling with psychological and physical ramifications of lockdown; it was an existential moment in the film that we needed to capture. But global flight bans were in place and we knew audiences would only stomach a few minutes of Zoom interviews.
By Autumn 2020, while most countries were still in lockdown, the possibility of flying to Slovenia to film with Janja surfaced. But as with all documentary decisions, ethics played a crucial role. Vaccines were months away from being rolled out, and it was still the early stages of the Alpha variant. Travelling to film with Janja meant opening her up to the potential threat of the virus, which I may catch in transit. Equally, I could get trapped in country, or bring the virus back to my family.
We methodically planned out how to manage the risks with extensive new covid filming protocols, two metre distancing, masks and constant hand sanitising. At that time, there was a 48-hour window to get into Slovenia, film, and get out to avoid incurring in-country isolation. I would need governmental permission to enter the country, police passes to cross regional borders, then two weeks isolating from my family on returning home to the UK. I also took the decision to film this and all remaining shoots on my own to lower the risk of transmission to the climbers and reduce the complexity of managing the new Covid protocols with a larger crew.
The gamble paid off. Those poignant lockdown shoots with Janja, and then with Shauna, continued in this paired-back way for the next eight months: Shauna fighting through injury rehabilitation in Sheffield; Janja battling her innermost demons with the help of her new climbing coach in Slovenia. Despite the drawbacks of a one-man film crew, it did at least aid my ability to fade into the background during these sensitive moments.
While restrictions were still in place for the US and Japan, we hired local DOPs and I would direct scenes with Brooke and Miho via Zoom. Our brilliant Editor Emily West and I juggled the technical and logistical challenges of eight months of remote editing (from our respective bedrooms), while our composer Nainita Desai wrote the epic score from her remote studio.
Finally, as Summer 2021 drew closer and the world began to open up, the US flight ban lifted and I flew out solo to the Colorado mountains for a final shoot with Brooke, days before she and the other climbers would retreat into their pre-Olympic Covid bubbles. Two weeks prior to the Games, rumours were still pervasive that they would be cancelled. Reports were trickling in from Tokyo that some athletes had made it out, only to test positive on arrival. I remember the constant fear that our climbers wouldn’t even make it out there.
We took the difficult decision not to go to the Games in person. It became clear that even if we succeeded in obtaining Japanese visas, our access to the athletes would be virtually non-existent as they would be restricted to contact with only their immediate team. That posed the question of how we would we cover the climax of the film, the emotional peak we’d been working towards for two years, without being there. Relying purely on the sports coverage would leave the ending bereft of the intimacy and access we’d fought so hard to gain.
Throughout its conception, one of the film’s sub themes had always been how crucial a role the climbers’ parents had played in their success. Like with any elite sport, that cradle of early support and encouragement was fundamental. And we knew their parents would be facing the same yearning frustration we were of having to watch the Games from the other side of the planet. So, we pooled our team of remote DOP’s and placed one with each family for the two days of climbing events at the Olympic Games. The aim – to capture the event through the eyes of the parents and feel the unbridled fear and pride that any of us would watching their child compete on the world’s biggest stage.
Fortunately for us all, the climbers avoided the virus and took on the Games fiercely, and as we filmed alongside their families, the atmosphere was electric and heart rending. For me, being in the village square where Janja grew up, surrounded by her family and hundreds of champagne spraying Slovenians was a memory I won’t forget. We were privileged to have been able to capture their moment in history and bring the stories of these four heroines to the big screen.
Nick Hardie is an award winning Director and Cinematographer, known for his Bafta-winning series ‘Formula One: Drive to Survive’ (Netflix), ‘Babies’ (Netflix) and the award winning feature documentary ‘The Wall – Climb for Gold’.
