Chin’s ‘Meru’ to screen for 10th anniversary – JH News&Guide

Sundance Film Festival’s 2015 audience award-winning documentary “Meru” will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a special screening at Walk Festival Hall followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker this week. The event marks a joining of two arts forces in the Tetons — Grand Teton Music Festival and Jackson Hole International Film Festival.

“Meru,” made by Jimmy Chin and his spouse Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, shares the trials and tribulations of Chin, Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk as they attempt the formidable terrain known as the Shark’s Fin of Mount Meru in the Himalayas.

“For me, storytelling through film transforms raw experience … the weight of risk, the quiet of resilience, that sense of awe into something visceral that others can share,” Chin emailed to the Jackson Hole News&Guide. Chin is also a JHiFF board member.

“That bridge between lived moments and shared understanding is what drives my work,” Chin wrote. “JHiFF and GTMF are creating something vital here: a space where the mountains, the arts, and our community converge in true dialogue. Where stories don’t just complement the music, they stand as their own form of truth-telling about what it means to live in these wild places.”

JHiFF’s Executive Director Christy Fox said the partnership between the two festivals is just beginning.

“GTMF has been doing that for decades through music,” she said. “Our partnership on this and future events will nurture a space where filmmakers, audiences, and artists of all disciplines can gather, be moved, and move others.”

…The event is at 7 p.m. Thursday at Walk Festival Hall. A Q&A with Chin will follow. Tickets are $30 for adults and $5 for students and children, and are available through GTMF.org.

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