Written by on Feb 28, 2014. Posted in On Location

Everest movie films in Dolomites in Italy

Filming for new movie Everest has shifted to the Dolomites in Italy after a limited shoot on location in Nepal. The film charts an infamous day in Everest’s history in 1996 when a rogue storm killed eight climbers on separate expeditions.

“It's an amazing tale of endurance and it’s been fantastic,” co-star Clive Standen told Press Association:

“We've been working on it for about three weeks now - we've been filming right at the top of the Dolomites at -20 Degrees Celsius and it's tough but lots of fun. Lots of men stuck up a mountain and helicopters and we've been doing lots of mountaineering and climbing training. I think it's going to be a good one.”

Central Europe’s mountain ranges are a popular double for Everest and K2, the world’s highest peaks, owing to easier access and better local production infrastructure.

Hollywood is showing a renewed interest in the mountains and there have also been several docudramas spurred by the 60th anniversary of the first official Everest ascent by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

We've been filming right at the top of the Dolomites at -20 Degrees Celsius and it's tough but lots of fun.

Clive Standen, Actor

The challenges of a mountain shoot vary. For the Everest docudrama Beyond the Edge, filmmaker Leanne Pooley transported 3D camera equipment onto the Tasman Glacier in New Zealand and her team also filmed second-unit footage on Everest itself during an actual ascent.

Remote-controlled helicopters are an increasingly popular way of filming sweeping vistas at high-altitude in inaccessible areas. Corey Rich Productions used these cameras for a 2012 film charting an ascent of the Trango Tower in the Karakoram mountain range of China, India and Pakistan.

(Everest photo: Universal Pictures)