Wanda Rutkiewicz. The Last Expedition.
Ostatnia wyprawa + live online Q&A with a film director, Eliza Kubarska

Dir.: Eliza Kubarska, Poland, 2024, 85 min.
Languages spoken: English, Polish, Tibetan, German
with English subtitles

The mystery of the disappearance of mountaineering icon Wanda Rutkiewicz in her quest for freedom.

Pioneering Polish mountain climber Wanda Rutkiewicz disappeared in the Himalayas in 1992.

‘Wanda Rutkiewicz. The Last Expedition’ was the opening film of the largest documentary film festival in Poland, Millenium Docs Against Gravity.
The film’s world premiere took place at one of the most important A-class festivals in Amsterdam, IDFA.
The film appeared in Polish cinemas last autumn, where it broke the record in terms of audience, reaching 50,000 viewers. It is nominated for the Eagles (Polish Oscar) award in the categories of best documentary film and best editing.

What happened on that final climb? Filmmaker and mountaineer Eliza Kubarska traces Wanda’s footsteps on the world’s highest peaks in a journey into the mystery surrounding the fate of the first woman to summit K2.
Could Wanda be still alive, in a monastery in Tibet?
Weaving together Wanda’s own, previously unseen diaries, audio and video archives from her Himalayan expeditions, interviews with legendary climbers, Sherpas, Buddhist nuns and monks, this is a riveting account of the emotional struggles and aspirations of a woman who rose above a world that often sought to limit her and charted her own path to freedom.

About film director and guest of Q&A:

Eliza Kubarska – mountaineer, director. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts and the Andrzej Wajda Film School in Warsaw. Her documentary films are awarded at prestigious festivals around the world. One of the few women in the world who opened new climbing routes on several hundred metres high vertical walls. She climbed in the Karakoram, the Himalayas, Greenland.

FESTIVALS • AWARDS
Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival (Warsaw): Silesian Audience Award 2024 (Winner), Special Mention 2024 (Winner), Special Mention (The City Of Poznań Freedom Award) 2024 (Winner),The Arthouse Cinema Association Award In The Polish Competition 2024 (Winner)
Amsterdam, 37th IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
64th Krakow Film Festival