Last Friday, December 16, during the Mendi Film Festival in Bilbao, Australian director Michael Dillon was awarded the IAMF 2022 Grand Prize.
We thank the Mendi Film Festival for the perfect organization and Piotr Turkot of the Krakow Mountain Festival for being there during the ceremony. We renew our congratulations to the great Michael Dillon, who spent his lifetime’s work in the field of mountain film, realizing over a hundred outdoor film projects stretching over fifty years.
Highlights of his career include 25 years as Sir Edmund Hillary’s filmmaker, and his filming of three significant
Australian Everest expeditions, including a never since repeated sea level to summit climb which he conceived and filmed. That film “Everest Sea to Summit” won eight Grand Prizes worldwide and is considered one of the greatest adventure films of all time. Throughout 2022 “Everest Sea to Summit” will be available to all members of the International Alliance for Mountain Film who will decide to put it in their programs.
This is the first time the IAMF Grand Prize has been won by someone from the Southern hemisphere, or from a country that is not a member of the International Alliance for Mountain Film and this is a due recognition to all those cinematographies which, although smaller than the North American or European ones in terms of number of productions, have played an equally important role in the history of mountain cinema.