Mothered by Mountains

“So this was supposed to be a film about, like, empowering women, about bringing two of my friends on this badass adventure. But it all kinda went horribly wrong.” That’s Ben Ayers of the dZi Foundation, who hatched a plan to match renowned Nepalese climber Pasang Llamu Sherpa Akita with Kathmandu punk rocker Sareena Rai for an ambitious objective: motorcycle from Kathmandu to mountains, then bag a first ascent. But the white-male-directed adventure falls flat, and the women end up doing it their own way, bonding as they go over issues like motherhood, family and the pressures of society on their gender.