In the winter of 2020-21, some of the world’s leading mountaineers converged on K2, the world’s second-highest mountain in the Karakoram mountain range between Pakistan and China, in pursuit of a feat widely considered nearly impossible: reaching its summit in winter.

“The Last First: Winter K2,” a new documentary from Amir Bar-Lev, follows Icelandic climber John Snorri Sigurjónsson and Pakistani father-and-son mountaineers Ali and Sajid Sadpara as they attempt the ascent. They share the mountain with commercial expedition clients, social media personalities, film crews, and a team of Nepalese climbers determined to claim the historic achievement for their country.

The expedition became both a milestone and a tragedy. A Nepalese team completed the first winter ascent of K2, while five climbers died during the season.

Bar-Lev, whose previous films include the Grateful Dead documentary “Long Strange Trip” and the Emmy-winning “The Tillman Story,” began working on “The Last First” in 2024. Drawing on footage recorded by people on the mountain, he examines not only what happened, but also the forces surrounding modern mountaineering, including nationalism, commercialization, social media, class, and the pursuit of glory.

The Woodstock Film Festival screened the documentary at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 13, at Upstate Films’ Orpheum Theatre in Saugerties. A conversation with Bar-Lev will followed. The film is scheduled to begin streaming on Apple TV on Oct. 2.

The Overlook spoke with Bar-Lev ahead of the screening. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What first drew you to this story?

Part of what drew me to this story is that I dislike a lot of mountaineering films. There are some that I find riveting, and then there are plenty that I find somewhat manipulative and on shaky ethical ground.

I felt like this story was a great opportunity to explore mountaineering from a sea-level perspective, rather than engaging in a kind of hagiographic romanticizing of death-defying acts.

The story happened three years before I got involved, and I never had to go anywhere near the Himalayas because there were so many cameras on the mountain when these events transpired. These days, when you go on these high-altitude expeditions, most people bring a chef, porters, and a documentary crew or some other type of videographer.

This has a riveting survival story and tragedy in it. It also has some interesting insights into the state of culture these days.

What did you want to do differently from other mountaineering documentaries?

I wanted to interrogate the role of storytellers like myself in encouraging risk-taking.

I should say I’m not against risk-taking. I think it’s a very human act to take risks. I don’t want to live in a world that feels like the Pixar movie “WALL-E,” where everybody is totally safe and sedentary.

At the same time, whether you’re a fan of a rock star with a drug problem or a documentary consumer watching people take wild risks in the high mountains, it’s worth looking at that dynamic. That’s what I hoped to do with this film.

How did you reconstruct what happened on the mountain?

I had all the footage from people who were there, and I found the key players and interviewed them.

A competition developed in a place that probably could have used more cooperation. In the history of mountaineering, Sherpas, and more recently the Balti people of Pakistan, have often been relegated primarily to the role of porters, adjuncts, or guides. They have ended up becoming handmaidens to the glory of what are usually white, Western mountaineers who attain the records.

In 2020, a group of Nepalese climbers decided they didn’t want to play second fiddle anymore. They felt it wasn’t fair, and they wanted to win this last mountaineering prize on behalf of Nepal. It brings up a lot of interesting questions. One of them, for me, is whether mountaineering can be treated as a sport.

Your documentaries have covered widely different subjects. How do you decide what story to pursue?

I have to find a subject genuinely confusing. If I find myself flip-flopping about my feelings toward a subject before I’ve decided to make the film, then I become more intrigued. It has to pose questions that I genuinely don’t feel I have the answers to.

I seek out stories that have a good, healthy dose of ambiguity. It really has to boil down to something that I don’t think has easy answers.

I thought about this film a lot as a parent. Five people die during the film, and I think they collectively left behind something like 13 children. I feel of two minds about it. On the one hand, I don’t think we should stop pursuing our passions when we have kids. On the other hand, I wonder what the limit is. I’m not sure I found the limit myself.

Why do people continue to climb a mountain as dangerous as K2, and what do you hope audiences take from the film?

I think humans are interested in putting themselves at risk, taking themselves out of the increasingly cosseted lives we conduct in civilization, testing themselves, and seeing parts of this planet that very few people get to see. Those places are incredible and otherworldly. I have a lot of sympathy and understanding for that.

I hope the takeaway isn’t, “Boy, these people are crazy.” It’s much more complicated than that. If you’re saying that, I don’t think you totally got the film. If you’re walking away without seeing it as a tragedy, I think you also missed the film.

Beyond that, I don’t like to say what people should take away. I love that there can be many different takeaways from my films. I construct them that way. Picking a subject about which you have conflicting feelings allows for conflicting takeaways, which is my favorite kind of review.

Noah Eckstein is the editor-in-chief of The Overlook. Send correspondence to noah@theoverlooknews.com.