Girl Climber

The extraordinary life story of a girl prodigy who turned the climbing world upside down. To Emily, the impossible dream of climbing 3,200 feet on El Capitan via the “Golden Gate” route in a single day would be the pinnacle of her climbing career. She started at the forefront of competitive climbing and rose to become a five-time National Champion. Now, alongside her climbing partner, Alex Honnold, she’s ready to conquer her lifetime dream when a near-death fall and a dramatic rescue-and-rush to the emergency room takes everything away. Emily is forced to question her own values and redefine who she is at her core. She balances her emotional recovery and intense physical training with her plans of starting a family with her fiancé, Adrian Ballinger, whom she met while climbing Everest. Yet, as she ropes up for a final attempt at El Cap, she accomplishes more than just a career achievement, she finds self-transformation and the boldness to begin her next chapter as climber and mother. Emily Harrington flips the script on traditional climbing heroes, and tells a modern female story of a woman pioneering her own path within the elite climbing world.
Director's Note: When I started filming with Emily Harrington on El Capitan in 2015, the goal was to document her climbing goal, and to make a short film for an outdoor brand. But, as Emily’s personal and professional life evolved, I started to see a deeper, more meaningful story take shape - one of overcoming fear, gender bias, and self-doubt. I wanted to flip the script on male dominated climbing films, where women were delegated to the valley floor, looking up in fear at their heroic partners. I wanted to present a different point of view, with a female central character achieving her wildest dreams. It became my mission to film and direct a feature documentary showing how Emily faces both external and internal challenges, and how she overcomes them. As a professional climber, and close friend of Emily, I had extraordinary access to documenting her personal and professional life as an elite athlete at the pinnacle of her career. For nearly 10 years, I followed Emily around the world, filming her climbing expeditions, training at home, and fighting her demons on El Capitan. No other artistic medium than video could show Emily’s athletic intensity, nor the visceral drama unfolding thousands of feet off the ground at the end of a rope. Only by making a feature documentary film about Emily’s extraordinary climbing achievements, and her infectious passion for rock climbing, can her story be fully and intimately told.