Although their most recent doc “The Rescue” continues its festival and award-circuit run, directors Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin have been at work in the edit suite prepping their next big-screen effort – a decades spanning love story mixing business, philanthropy, and the great outdoors.
The doc, still untitled, will be launched in mid-2022. It will explore the complicated relationship between Yvon Chouinard (founder of Patagonia apparel), Douglas Tompkins (cofounder of North Face, Esprit and Esprit brands), Kristine McDivitt (ex-CEO Patagonia) and Tompkins.
“It’s kind of a love triangle,”Vasarhelyi explains Variety. “It’s a big love story with a major female protagonist, which is a big step for us. It inhabits the incredibly private worlds of Jimmy’s original mentors, who were best friends, though two totally different types of people, with a woman in between.”
Like in previous films “Free Solo”And “Meru,” the upcoming project will explore the world of elite climbers – in which Chin is a leading figure – mixing adventure footage, shot in the Tompkins’ private nature reserve Patagonia Park, with interviews and archival material to explore this unconventional relationship.
“Doug named the highest mountain in their park Cerro Kristine, after his wife,”Vasarhelyi. “Jimmy climbed that mountain with Doug and Yvon in 2001, [and, after Doug’s death in 2015] Kris really wanted to climb the mountain named after her. So the film will be more of a meditative journey about how we got there.”
It took some time. The filmmakers started work on the film several years ago. They shot the final footage in February 2019. They originally planned to make this film as a follow-up to their Oscar winning film. “Free Solo,”The opportunity to win was the moment that the focus changed. “The Rescue” came up – a fact that speaks to the latter project’s expedited timeline.
“This has been a sprint,”Vasarhelyi speaks out about her latest film. “[It’s been] non-stop for the past eight months! We were so desperate trying to finish it that we showed one version at Telluride, another one at Toronto, and [kept working on it] until the film’s release.”
With “The Rescue”Vasarhelyi now has the film out in the world, with the filmmakers following it on the international circuit. She is relieved to be free to devote her time to new projects. “You have to be distracted by something else, to start thinking of new ideas,”She says. “We just saw our first cut of our next doc, so creatively, we’re in the real deal moment again. We’re understanding what we have, tackling the problems that have been obsessing us – and it’s been so nice to have that.”