Saturday, March 29, 2014

THE HIGH: MAKING THE TOUGHEST RACE ON EARTH (UPDATE)

What is The High?  And what makes it 'the toughest race on earth'?

Director Barry Walton picked up the race, ran in the Himalayas of Northern India four years ago now.  At the time the race was at the brink of its origin and before Barry could prepare a crew to shoot its maiden run the gun had fired and the runners were off to near death experiences for each.  Now four years later Barry has pieced together the telling of each individual runners story and is working to premiere the release of the project at Telluride Film Festival in Colorado or a festival of it's stature.  If you are interested in learning more about the project watch the trailer and read the film synopsis below.  Then learn about the runners and find further information on the project at: www.thehighdoc.com 




FILM SYNOPSIS:

In 2010, a group of extreme runners brought together by an adventure-obsessed race director mutually volunteer in a running experiment over the two highest passes in the world.  Joined by a wily war journalist from the Christian Science Monitor.  The five find themselves in a mix of uncontrollable mistakes that would leave not only the race in jeopardy, but also their vary lives.   

The story opens with Rajat Chauhan and the telling of a whimsical weekend run in high altitude that gave birth to the experiment.  A doctor out of New Delhi, Rajat's failed dreams to be a professional runner in youth have driven his vision for this a new outlet.  An outlet that would begin teetering between determination and obsession by it's end.  

Connecting through Facebook and emails to running groups around the world.  Rajat finds twenty-seven interested candidates, but would only end up with three at the start.  The first Molly Sheridan, an experience ultra marathon runner from the USA join the team from the word go and worked to convince her companion and running partner Bill Andrews to ride along.  Soon the two set off to India with excitement and plans of ceremonious events.  The third and final member Mark Cockbain joined from the UK and brought a history of completing many the hardest races in the sport.  Upon arrival the three set out on a journey full of treacherous challenges and life changing events.  

Joining the race on day 2 is the lone journalist for the event Ben Arnoldy.  While living in New Delhi, Ben had been covering the war in Afghanistan for the Christian Science Monitor.  Looking for a break from the tragedies of war, he excitedly went in hopes to cover the story of humans accomplishing new feats.  However upon his arrival he discovered a race experiment gone wrong.  Working to unfold the events of the race he discovers wedding ceremonies at 18,000 feet, runners down from dehydration and hospital visits that rang with fatality.  Spending his time on the course collecting the fragments of Rajat's collapsing dream.  He talks in detail of his experience and insights until he himself would come up lost and missing from the course while searching for its end.


With the race, the vision, the dream, and even the obsession hanging the balance.  One questions remains to be answered, will there be a finisher or will this race finish them all?  In the answer rest what would happen to the last man on the course and the reason that it's called, the toughest race on earth.   

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1 comment:

  1. Look forward to seeing the movie. Trailer looks great! Very proud of you Barry!!

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