by John Wildman
AFI FEST Daily News

BLINDSIGHT, a new documentary directed by LUCY WALKER, is about the blind leading the blind.

No joke.

Walker's cameras follow blind mountain climber Erik Weihenmayer and blind educator Sabriye Tenberken as they lead six teens from a Tibet school for the blind on an impossible ascent up Mount Everest.

Walker captures each harrowing and awe-inspiring moment along the way as the expedition reaches a place a select few have been.

But Walker's achievement - beyond surviving the climb herself - is the access she gives to the courageous and generous students, condemned by their society and oftentimes their own families.

BLINDSIGHT makes its US premiere November 6, 7:15 PM, at AFI FEST 2006 presented by Audi. It screens again November 7, 1:00 PM.

1. What was the biggest surprise for you about the blind Tibetan children you followed for the film?

Lucy Walker: Tashi - whose name translates as Lucky - was born into a very poor family in China, and went blind at the age of two. When he was nine, his Dad needed money to build a new house, so he sold Tashi to a Chinese couple who had a business plan to take Tashi into town to beg.

So that he couldn't run back home, the couple took him all the way to Tibet, and forced him to beg on the streets of Lhasa, and beat him up so badly that finally Tashi couldn't stand it anymore and ran away, even though he didn't know anyone there and couldn't speak any Tibetan.

So at the age of ten he was sleeping rough in the freezing streets of Lhasa, without even pockets, so that anytime he managed to beg some money, other beggars would steal it from him. He survived for two years, until the blind school opened, and a kind passerby took him there.

When we were filming, Tashi said to me, "One of the best things about being blind" - and you've got to be surprised by the beginning of that sentence - "is that it forces you to look on the bright side."

Watch the movie and tell me whether it's surprising that a human being can endure this much pain, and emerge as gracefully as he has.

2. Erik Weihenmayer is a great personality with uncommon drive and energy. Did you feel any conflict dividing time between him and the children themselves?

Making a film with eight protagonists (the blind American mountaineer Erik, the blind German educator Sabriye, and the six blind Tibetan students Tashi, Kyila, Sonam Bongso, Tenzin, Gyenshen, Dachung) is a bit like having eight beloved kids.

You feel spread thin and run ragged trying to keep up with them all, but you love each of them so much, and each of their stories is so unique and compelling, that you'll never stop working to do all you can for each and every one of them.

I'm happy that the film works structurally with so many characters. That was a narrative challenge.

And yes, in practical terms - when we were shooting up above base camp on Everest, when both camera operators' mouths were blue and fingers were getting frostnipped and the sun was setting and you haven't eaten or slept or had a coherent thought in days - having eight larger-than-life characters to document required some serious time management.

It isn't easy when you're climbing Everest to do anything more than keep up, let alone figure out what was going on with eight different blind characters, to decide what material you needed to cover it, and then to get it in the can, without killing any crew members.

3. What is the best thing about having your film at AFI FEST?

I love AFI. I had met festival director Christian Gaines before when my film DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND won an AFI award and had been very impressed.

And I love the ArcLight theatres. As a filmmaker, it's my favorite treat for my film to be shown in the best technical set-up.

And recovering from Everest, I just enjoy being at sea level.

While I was shooting BLINDSIGHT above 21,000 feet, I used to lie shivering in my frozen tent fantasizing about lying on warm sand on Venice Beach on a sunny afternoon looking at the ocean and knowing for sure that I was at the sea level. Zero altitude. Thick air. Heavenly.

No matter how bad the smog gets, there's more oxygen in Hollywood than up Everest.

4. Who or what inspired you to make film?

As the blind Tibetan teenagers say in BLINDSIGHT, "normal people's hearts are blind."

I never wanted to be a normal person. Like everyone else, I've had some sad moments in my life where nobody saw the world from my point of view.

Nothing feels more compelling for me than the ability to imaginatively experience other people's emotional lives. You bypass all kinds of nasty human flaws when you achieve that. You can't pity someone, or hurt someone, or hate someone, when you are engaged in their point of view.

Also, the process, the play-making, has always been a pleasure. From when I was a child making cardboard box TV sets or acting in 30-second plays, to making NYU shorts, to working on grown-up professional productions, I invariably love the craft of it, the doing of it.

5. What technical hurdles did you overcome to film on Mount Everest?

There's no camera repair shop, so you need two cameras, in case one breaks.

There's no Fed-Ex so you need to think of absolutely everything you need in advance, but it has to be carried on the backs of yaks in snowstorms.

There's no guarantee that any one crew member won't get sick or hurt, so you need two camera operators.

There's no electricity, so you need to charge batteries using solar panels.

There's no way the camera operators can carry anything in addition to doing the camera work because it's all so strenuous, so each camera rig needs two sherpas.

There's no oxygen, so you can't think straight or remember much, so I needed a waterproof notebook permanently in my pocket with all my storyboards, shot lists, interview questions, story arcs, Tibetan phrases, kit lists.

And there's no way you want to miss the beauty of the place, so you need high quality format. We chose the Panasonic Varicam 27 Hi-Def, which looks so good, now that it's blown up to 35mm, that I drool when I watch it.

And rather like the old saw - that whatever Fred was doing, Ginger was doing backwards in high heels - whatever you see on screen, we were doing as well. While shooting.

6. Who would be the easiest to baby sit, the children in BLINDSIGHT or the Amish teenagers you profiled in DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND?

I love all the teenagers in BLINDSIGHT and in DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND, without exception or reservation.

Yeah, trying to keep up with meth addicts who drive cross country without insurance or sleep or money and crash their cars with your crew in the front seat is no picnic, but then again, climbing Everest with blind teenagers in a cold snap wasn't one of life's more comfortable moments either.

But I love all the characters in both movies. From Faron Yoder to Sonam Bongso, they are all the most vibrant and endearing and courageous young people. And it was my privilege to get to know them. They are all still my pals.

I'm very happy that Emma from DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND will be coming to AFI. She now lives in San Diego.

And they are all wonderful conversationalists, actually, so if you were babysitting them I guarantee you'd all stay up all night chatting, probably drinking Coors (the Amish kids' drink of choice) or chang (Tibetan monks' home-brew).

You'd love every minute you spent with them, just as I have.

7. What's the most underrated job on the set?

The yaks. They were the true sine qua non of this production.

But here's a serious story.

Our beloved behind-the-scenes doctor, Toan, nearly died on the descent.

He suffered pulmonary edema and at one point he was lying in deep snow in minus gazillion degrees in a raging blizzard in the middle of the night with his lungs filled with fluid, saying - through the crackle of liquid in his throat - that he'd rather die there than take another step.

It feels wrong that nobody even knows he was up there with us, and he very nearly never made it down.

8. What was the worst job you had before you became a filmmaker?

One of the perks about this work is the opportunity to chalk everything else up to research.

But I've been lucky. I've always taken the interesting jobs. Or at least I like it interesting.

There's the old Chinese curse "may you have an interesting life". When people tell me that I'm lucky my job isn't too boring, I sometimes ask them how interesting is too interesting.

I don't know many people who can enjoy the nutty travel, absolute unpredictability, insane egos, unlimited demands, non-existent salary, and total surrender of one's life to the task.

And that's the good times, that's when you're actually making something. The not-making something is when it gets too interesting for me.

9. While shooting BLINDSIGHT, you suffered a broken ankle, amoebic dysentery, giardia, headlice and altitude illness. Which was worse?

If you're going to get headlice, I recommend that you don't get them in your eyelashes.

And if you are going to break your ankle, I probably shouldn't have gone to altitude, where it doesn't heal properly. I'll never be able to run a marathon again.

But altitude illness - being unable to sleep, eat, think, being conscious of nothing but the pounding of your swollen brain and your overtaxed heart, and trying not to get afraid - that's rough. And by definition it strikes when you are literally between a rock and a hard place.

But the worst was the amoebic dysentery, and no contest. I'll spare you the details.

But there was one night back in Lhasa when the expedition doctor was out partying and didn't change my IV drip. I had to deal with my own IV line while being sicker than I've ever been, with the smell of rancid yak butter tea all around.

Let's just say that doctor is lucky I didn't get more vindictive with how he is portrayed in the movie.

10. Popcorn or candy?

I still lose my appetite when I'm sitting in a theatre watching BLINDSIGHT, remembering what it was like up there.

Above around 19,000 feet, you're in the death zone and you can't eat, your body can't assimilate nutrition, so it's just Aspirin or Ibuprofen, washed down with Gatorade or Emergen-C if you're lucky.

And if you're unlucky and the altitude gets you, then it's Diamox or Dexamethasone.

Then when the amoebae take over, it's Cipro or Flagyl, and good luck trying to keep them down.

After making BLINDSIGHT, the rest of my career will be all downhill.