Oprah Moderates Convo For ‘Everest: The Other Side,’ Reveals If She Plans To Scale World’s Tallest Mountain – Telluride Film Festival

No less a figure than Oprah Winfrey appeared at the Telluride Film Festival to moderate a conversation about Everest: The Other Side, following the film’s North American premiere on Saturday. Turns out she’s a big admirer of Jim Morrison, the primary focus of the documentary, who became the first person to scale Everest’s north side and ski down it. Kicking off the interview, Oprah said, “People talk about people being ‘one of one’ all the time. You truly are one of one, the only human being on the planet Earth out of the eight plus billion of us who has done that. And even though you have done it and now you have watched yourself do it multiple times, can you still wrap your brain around what that is?” Morrison replied, “It’s really hard and sitting here today watching that, it’s just some incredible memories and a lot of emotion and really powerful room to watch it in. And I feel really fortunate to be sitting here.” Watch on Deadline Jim Morrison climbs the north side of Everest. National Geographic/Jimmy Chin Morrison easily could have been killed at any point on the ascent where avalanches regularly claim the lives of climbers. And his ski down was just as perilous – a slip would have been fatal. “If I made the smallest of errors, it was all going to be over,” he told Oprah. Morrison knew the danger going in – the documentary project initially centered on the quest by him and his partner, world-class climber Hilaree Nelson, to summit Everest’s north side and ski down it. But she was tragically killed in 2022 on a mountaineering trip with Morrison to Nepal’s Manaslu. As she skied down, snow gave way and she plunged to her death. “I had this drive and this almost battle that I was in to get there and to succeed with Hilaree and then eventually without her and in her honor,” Morrison said of the Everest mission. “And I had failed multiple times, and I just had so much emotion caught up in is this it — am I never going to accomplish this dream?” Directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin introduce the North American premiere of ‘Everest: The Other Side’ at 2026 Telluride Film Festival on September 5, 2026. Vivien Killilea/Getty Images The National Geographic film is directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, who won an Oscar for the mountaineering film Free Solo. Chin, himself a world-class climber, was part of the small team that ascended Everest’s north side with Morrison, documenting failures and ultimate success. Vasarhelyi and Chin jetted to Telluride from Venice where they just held their world premiere. “This film took almost six years to make,” Vasarhelyi told the Telluride audience as she introduced the film. “It was the most technically complex film of our careers.” Chin commented, “A friend once said to me, ‘There are two great risks in life – risking too much and risking too little.’ It is a fine line between deciding what kind of life is a life worth living. What is the cost of not taking the risk to truly become your best?” Nelson left behind two sons from her previous marriage. Before he met Nelson, Morrison had endured the extraordinary tragedy of his wife and two young children dying in a plane crash. Oprah acknowledged she has urged Morrison to write a book about his life and experiences, because she feels convinced he has important lessons to impart. “There’s somebody watching this movie who’s just had the worst thing that could possibly happen in their life,” Winfrey noted. “There’s going to be somebody who sees this movie and they can’t see their way forward. You have been that person. What do you know now that you wish you could have known then or told yourself then?” Oprah interviews Jim Morrison at the 2026 Telluride Film Festival on September 5, 2026. With them is Morrison’s faithful dog, Wilson. Vivien Killilea/Getty Images “I’ve come to realize that the hardest days, the worst days, the days that feel like they’re never going to end or you’re not going to be able to get through the next minute, they do pass and there are bright things to come and really amazing things to come in life if you put one foot in front of another,” Morrison said. “Taking a deep breath and opening yourself up to what can be in the future I think is a way that we can all step forward out of loss or depression or whatever it is that’s getting us down and move towards our goal with our passion, whether that’s climbing Mount Everest [or something else].” Does Oprah harbor a goal of climbing Everest? She addressed that, by first mentioning another elite climber in the audience at the premiere, Peru’s Silvia Vasquez-Lavado. “My friend Silvia Vasquez… has done seven summits and is going to take a group of women to Everest next year,” Oprah said. “So, Silvia asked me to be one of those women going to Everest. That will never happen. That will not be happening, but I wish you well with that struggle, Silvia.” Everest: The Other Side heads to lower elevation for its next big event – screening at the Toronto Film Festival. The elevation ranges there (per a Google search) – between 250 and 700 feet.