Image credit: IMDb/Girl Climber Doc
The SVOD will premiere on Netflix this week (It dropped in the US and UK on September 16!) Climbing girl It follows elite mountaineer and five-time U.S. national champion Emily Harrington as she attempts a 24-hour free climb on Yosemite’s legendary El Capitan. Following a VOD run on Jolt Film earlier this year, the hit independent documentary is finally ready to reach a large global audience.
To celebrate the film’s arrival on Netflix, we’re bringing you a special two-part feature. For the first part, we sat down with John Glasberg– who not only directed and produced the film, but physically climbed the wall to film it himself. We talked about the terrifying logistics of filming on the edge of a steep cliff, the ethics of filming harrowing waterfalls, and what it means to bring this incredible story to Netflix.
Here’s what he had to say.
What’s on Netflix: John, you directed, produced and shot this film. What are the unique logistical nightmares of trying to balance storytelling and directing while literally hanging off the side of one of the world’s most terrifying rock formations?
John Glassberg: The biggest challenge is that filmmaking cannot be separated from climbing. Every creative decision is also a logistical and safety decision. You’re thinking about story, performance, camera placement, sound, weather, light, battery life, and whether everyone can move safely across the terrain, often while suspended thousands of feet above the ground.
As a director, I need to remain emotionally connected to Emily and understand what she is experiencing. As a cinematographer, I also try to anticipate where the story might take place and put myself in a position to capture it. On a wall like El Capitan, moving the camera even a relatively short distance can require a significant amount of time and physical effort. You can’t simply ask someone to replicate a real moment because the camera was in the wrong place. You either get the shot or miss the shot.
The real logistical nightmare is trying to prepare for everything while accepting that the most important moments are probably the ones you can’t predict. You build the most secure and resilient system possible, and then stay present enough to recognize the story as it unfolds.
There are multiple points in the documentary where Emily will, quite reasonably, be able to throw up her hands and say this challenge is too difficult. How was your relationship with Emily? Were there any points where you considered intervening in light of the violent fall? In other words, how difficult is it to wear the director’s hat in the climbing world?
My relationship with Emily was built on trust. I have known her for many years, and I know that she is an incredibly experienced climber who makes her own decisions. It was never my responsibility to convince her to continue or push her toward an outcome that would make the movie more dramatic. My responsibility was to provide the space for her to make honest decisions and document those decisions as honestly as possible.
There were moments when the filmmaker in me disappeared and the climber and friend took over. When someone has a scary fall, your first concern is whether or not they are safe. The film immediately becomes secondary. At the same time, climbing taught me that falling can seem terrifying to the public while still occurring within a system that the climber understands and chooses to accept.
The hard part is knowing when to stay calm, when to ask a question, and when to put the camera down. Emily always maintained control over whether or not to continue. If she had decided to stop, this would have been the story. The goal was never to create victory. The goal was to document the uncertainty, fear, determination, and cost behind any decision I made. But, of course I wanted it to work, the climber in me was like, “That would be so cool if I did that.”
Can you walk me through some of the challenges of filming something like this? Given your climbing roots, you have to add an insane level of complexity to your climbs in order to be able to shoot. What type of equipment do you use when climbing the rock face yourself?
Shooting on a large wall requires creating a production system that can work in a place where almost nothing fits. Every camera, lens, battery, microphone, lanyard, and piece of equipment should be carried, secured, protected, and accessible while on the harness. Dropping something is not an option, and changing a lens can become a surprisingly complex task.
We use professional compact camera systems that provide cinematic image quality without becoming impossible to manage on a wall. The majority of the filmmaking was done with Canon C300 and C400 cameras. Everything is connected to us or a rope system. We also use fixed ropes, specialized climbing devices, radios, remote cameras, and long lenses from positions on the wall and on the ground. Sound is another big challenge due to the wind, distance and constant noise of climbing equipment.
My background in climbing makes this kind of filmmaking possible, but it also adds another layer of responsibility. I have to move efficiently, manage my own safety, stay out of Emily’s way, and think like a director and cinematographer. The physical stress is great, but the mental load is often even harder. You’re constantly assessing risk, anticipating action, and trying to capture an intimate human story in an environment that resists almost every part of the filmmaking process.
There’s a horrific moment in the film where you’re filming a conversation when Emily starts going up and down and you hear a mixture of crying and screaming. It’s probably one of the most harrowing 30 seconds I’ve ever seen in a documentary – what was it like revisiting that footage in the editing area and how did you approach including it in the final cut?
It was very difficult to revisit that footage because the fear and emotion in it are so real. At that moment, none of us were thinking about whether we had captured a powerful scene or not. We were trying to understand what happened and make sure Emily was safe.
In the edit, we had to question whether including the moment served Emily’s story or was simply exploiting something painful. This distinction was very important to me. We chose to include it because it reveals the true dangers of what she was trying to do. It’s not just about physical danger. It shows the emotional stress and fatigue that has built up and how quickly confidence is shaken.
We didn’t want to sensationalize it or manipulate the audience with unnecessary music or editorial tricks. The raw sound and duration of the moment allow the viewer to experience some of the confusion and fear we experienced. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s also honest. Without moments like this, the end result will be incomplete because the audience won’t fully understand what Emily had to move through to get there.
The film achieved initial success on VOD play via Jolt Film earlier this year. As a director, what does it mean to you to have? Climbing girl Will the SVOD premiere on a huge platform like Netflix?
presence Climbing girl Coming to Netflix makes incredible sense. We made this film within the climbing community, but the story was always about something much bigger than climbing. It’s about identity, ambition, motherhood, partnership, fear, and the question of whether the parts of yourself that once defined you can evolve without disappearing.
The initial release through Jolt Film allowed us to connect directly with an audience that already understands the world of climbing. Netflix gives the film an opportunity to reach people who may have never watched a climbing documentary or even thought about what it means to climb El Capitan. This reach is exceptional for an independent documentary.
As a filmmaker, you spend years living with a story and making thousands of decisions in relative isolation. Knowing that the film can now reach millions of people around the world is so surreal and fun. I hope the audience comes to see the scale and intensity of the climb, but they stay because they recognize something in themselves in Emily’s struggle to hold on to her ambition while becoming a new version of herself.
Netflix has seen huge success with climbing content recently, including Alex Honnold’s live climb in Taipei, which I was a part of. Why do you think streaming audiences are currently fascinated by extreme climbing?
I think climbing connects with mainstream audiences because the risks are immediately understood. You don’t need to know anything about grades, techniques, or the history of climbing to understand what it’s like to see someone thousands of feet above the ground trying to do something that seems impossible. There is a physical clarity that translates across languages and cultures.
But it’s just the scenery that attracts people. What keeps them engaged is the person inside that experience. Climbing reveals fear, doubt, preparation, obsession, failure and resilience in a very direct way. During Alex Honnold’s live climb in Taipei, the audience wasn’t just watching whether he could reach the summit. They were watching how people manage stress and remain calm when the consequences are dire. An audience with a free solo will certainly want to understand whether the climber will live and die, but with free climbing on El Cap in the style that Emily does, it certainly looks like Emily could die at any moment, and she even has two dramatic accidents on camera in this film. Something you don’t get from free soloing.
Obviously the story of Girl Climber is very different, but I think it’s connected for a lot of the same reasons. Emily attempts to climb El Capitan, but underneath, she grapples with questions that many people can relate to. Who am I after becoming a father? Can I still pursue the things that made me who I am? How much risk am I comfortable taking now that others are dependent on me? You come for the huge wall and terrifying waterfalls, but hopefully you stay because you see a piece of your own life in what Emily is going through.
Many thanks to John Glasberg for taking the time to answer our questions!
Climbing girl It will be available to stream on Netflix starting then September 16. Whether you’re an experienced climber or just looking for your next documentary, don’t miss this film. Keep your eyes peeled for Part 2 Our coverage is tomorrow, as we have more questions for the star of the documentary – the legendary Emily Harrington herself – to talk about what it was really like to be on that wall.