The Last Expedition (Eliza Kubarska) Poland |

The Last Expedition
Eliza Kubarska
Poland. 2024. 85 min

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

ELIZA KUBARSKA

Eliza Kubarska is a director and artist, screenwriter, and mountain climber specialising in filmmaking under extreme conditions. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts and the Wajda Film School in Warsaw, she is an expert at the Polish Film Institute. Kubarska collaborates with prominent broadcasters such as ARTE, ZDF, HBO, MAX, and TVP.
Receiving accolades at prestigious documentary film festivals, including Hot Docs Toronto, Locarno, LA Film Festival, IDFA, Visions du Reel, Zürich FF, BFI London FF, Margaret Mead FF (NYC), MDAG (Poland), her works include “Mountain Love Story” (63 min) shot in Greenland; “Walking Under Water” (76 min), an underwater documentary about sea nomads from Borneo that won the Hot Docs Jury Award; “K2: Touch the Sky” (72 min), which tells the story of climbers’ children who perished on K2, premiered at Locarno Festival; and “The Wall of Shadows” (90 min), filmed in winter in the Himalayas, which premiered at Hot Docs and has
been recognised as the most awarded Polish mountain-themed film globally.
In 2023, Eliza received the Grand Prix from the International Alliance of Mountain Film Festivals for her outstanding contributions to mountain-themed cinema, making her the first woman ever to receive this honour. Her latest film, “The Last Expedition” (85 min), chronicles the life of pioneering woman high-altitude climber Wanda Rutkiewicz; it was selected as the opening film for the prestigious Millennium Docs Against Gravity festival in May 2024 and is set to premiere at IDFA 2024.