Touching The Void Out In December...

The film of Joe Simpson's Peruvian crevasse / glacier survival epic Touching the Void is now due to go on general release in the UK on December 12.

The gala premiere of the film is actually going to be at this year's Kendal Mountain Film Festival on 15 November - see links to previous articles below - and it's also screening tonight (October 27) at the London Film Festival.

The film team, together with Joe Simpson and Simon Yates actually returned to Siula Grande in the Cordillera Huayhuash of Peru and filmed footage of the mountain, on the glacier and at the actual site of Joe and Simon's base camp below the morraine. Quite an undertaking as the mountain is three days from the road and some 80 burros were needed to carry the 20-strong team's food and equipment.

Both Simpson and Yates reportedly experienced strong reactions when they reached the Siula Grande. In particular Simpson observes:

"I thought I would just be able to deal with it, but what I found was that things really affected me in ways that I had never expected. I got to the base camp which had been recreated, but it didn't mean anything to me. Then I asked Simon where he found me. He walked about a hundred yards away and pointed at this rock and I remembered it all and started having a freak-out in my head. I wasn't shaking but I felt like I was. It was like someone walking over your grave. I had forgotten how appalling it was being reduced to almost nothing.'

The film includes harrowing reconstructions both of Simpson's initial fall where he broke his leg and the nightmarish lowering sequence that culminated in the huge crevasse fall after Simon Yates cut the rope

The climbing scenes were reconstructed in the Alps in October, under the direction of top climber and guide Brian Hall, with conditions presenting a real challenge. Temperatures dropped as low as minus 20 degrees Centigrade and severe snow storms disrupted filming, some of which took place inside a crevasse.