Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa

Running Time: 40 minutes

Adventure, Documentary

Synopsis


Cast: Heidi Albertsen, Roger Bilham, Jacob Kyungai, Audrey Salkeld, Nicole Wineland-Thomson

Producer(s):

Crew: Director - David Breashears, Writer - Mose Richards, Producer - David Breashears, Producer - Arabella Cecil, Original Music - Alan Williams,


Distributor: Houston Museum of Natural Science,

Release Date: 03/01/2002
Running Time: 40 minutes
OFFICIAL SITE



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Meet the Director and the Trek Team

Filmmakers

Kilimanjaro is a David Breashears Film, produced by Kilimanjaro Inc. in collaboration with the Houston Museum of Natural Science; Denver Museum of Nature & Science; Museum of Science, Boston; and Omaha''s Henry Doorly Zoo. The Houston Museum of Natural Science is the executive producer and world-wide distributor.



Director/Producer

From Everest to Kilimanjaro, Producer/Director David Breashears

Driving this film is the dream of capturing the dramatic sweep and beauty of Kilimanjaro for the giant screen. Accomplishing this feat is David Breashears, one of the world¹s leading adventure filmmakers. As co-director and expedition leader for the landmark large-format film Everest, Breashears captured some of the most breathtaking images ever seen on a movie screen, taking audiences on a triumphant journey to the top of the world. Everest gained unprecedented media coverage, while Breashears became internationally renowned for his filming accomplishments and for elevating large-format filmmaking to a new level of cinematic power and storytelling. The movie-watching world is waiting to see where Breashears turns his lens next. With Kilimanjaro, Breashears returns to the high-altitude environment where he feels most at ease and to a subject exceptionally suited to his filmmaking talents.

The Team

The Trek Team of Kilimanjaro

In choosing the trek team, the Kilimanjaro producers sought engaging individuals with wide-ranging interests, ages, nationalities and backgrounds. The goal is to appeal to a broader audience by presenting the wonders of Kilimanjaro as seen through the eyes of youngsters, such as the 13-year-old African boy and 12-year-old American girl, to the more experienced, such as the 55-year-old science professor and 64-year-old writer and historian. These distinctive perspectives, along with the others represented on the team, allow audience members to easily imagine themselves joining this small band of amateur adventurers.



Heidi Albertsen

A native of Denmark, Heidi, 23, is a successful model and an accomplished painter. She grew up taking camping trips to the Alps with her family and developed an abiding fascination for mountains and adventure. Throughout the expedition, her extroverted nature inspired her comrades. No matter how thin the air grew or how high the team ascended, Heidi''s energy never flagged as she sketched, painted, wrote and photographed her way to the top.



Roger Bilham

Born in England, Roger, 55, is now based at the University of Boulder in Colorado. A leading authority on earthquakes, volcanoes and tectonic plate movement, he has been studying the movement of East Africa''s Great Rift Valley for years. His work takes him around the globe studying shifts and strains in the earth¹s crust, monitoring and collecting data with the goal of better predicting areas most at risk for seismic catastrophe. A born teacher and communicator, the professor inspired and taught the two youngest members of the team with his boundless enthusiasm for the science of mountains.



Hans ''Hansi'' Mmari

A member of the Chagga tribe, Hansi, 13, lives with his family just outside the town of Arusha, where he can see Kilimanjaro 20 miles in the distance. He excels in math, plays soccer, is accomplished on the computer and speaks English as fluently as Swahili. His father''s experiences climbing Kilimanjaro fired up Hansi¹s imagination. Throughout the journey, he displayed remarkable tenacity and willingness to learn, taking a keen interest in the science of the volcano and the IMAX camera.



Audrey Salkeld

Audrey, 64, is an award-winning writer and historian, largely on the subject of mountaineering. She has been researcher/consultant on many films, including the large-format film Everest. Audrey is at work on the National Geographic Society book about Kilimanjaro and co-authored Last Climb: The Legendary Everest Expeditions of George Mallory with David Breashears. Audrey lives in Cumbria, England, with her husband and has three grown sons. Although she''s spent her career traveling to the mountains of the world, she had never climbed a peak as high as Kilimanjaro.



Nicole Wineland-Thomson

Nicole, 12, lives with her family in Massachusetts. She loves to ride horses, hike and tackle the walls at an indoor climbing gym. She also is a seasoned world traveler, thanks to her parents'' safari business. Nicole''s most vivid memories center on East Africa, where she has often gone on safari with her parents. After she saw the ice-capped summit of Kilimanjaro for the first time and heard her father''s tales of ascending to its peak in 1979, Nicole vowed to climb it herself. There aren''t many girls of 12 who have climbed to the Roof of Africa, and none have overnighted in the crater at 18,700 feet. Nicole proved to be the delight of the entire team, and her fresh observations enliven the film.



Rick Thomson

Accompanying his daughter, Nicole, on the trip, Rick, 44, is a native New Zealander who has been in the safari business in East Africa for 20 years. He met and married Judy Wineland, who runs an overseas travel company. For the past 15 years, they''ve been based in the Boston area, but travel yearly to East Africa, where their safari headquarters is based in Arusha. Not surprisingly, Rick and Judy''s daughter inherited their love of adventure.



Jacob Kyungai

Leading the trek team and narrating the film is Jacob, 50, a Chagga mountain guide who has climbed Kilimanjaro at least 241 times. With a lifelong connection to the mountain, he has always lived at its base in Machame village. On his small farm, he raises cows and chickens and grows coffee and corn in the fertile volcanic soil, and the melting glaciers and snows of Kilimanjaro help water his crops. He helped design and construct some of the mountain routes, and during the Kilimanjaro team''s ascent, shared his knowledge of flora and fauna in the various climate zones.

Copyright © 2002 Houston Museum of Natural Science and/or its suppliers, Houston, TX, U.S.A.

All rights reserved.



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