Jimmy Chin

Filmmaker & Producer

The Rescue

Jimmy Chin is an Academy® Award-winning filmmaker, National Geographic photographer and professional climber and skier. He has led and documented cutting edge expeditions around the world for over 20 years. He has climbed and skied Mount Everest from the summit and made the coveted first ascent of the Shark’s Fin on Mount Meru. His photographs have graced the covers of National Geographic Magazine and the New York Times Magazine. Jimmy co-produces and co-directs with his wife Chai Vasarhelyi. Their film Meru won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015 and was on the 2016 Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary Feature. Their latest documentary Free Solo won a BAFTA® and the Academy® Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2019, as well as seven Emmy® awards. Jimmy splits his time between New York City and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with Chai, their daughter, Marina, and son, James.

Participating Sessions

FILMING THE NEAR IMPOSSIBLE

The completion of any documentary is always something of a miracle: securing funding, accessing participants willing to open their lives to the camera over months, sometimes years, bringing it to audiences. But a small number of films take these challenges to new heights, rendering people, spaces and institutions that are largely invisible — for legal or practical reasons — and making them visible through the camera’s eye. The filmmakers on...

CENTERPIECE: The Rescue