In 1985, Laurent Chevallier went to film, with Bernard Prudhomme, a French expedition on Gasherbrum 2 (8,035 m), aiming for the first delta wing jump at 8,000 meters. This Western feat was only possible thanks to the painstaking work of the Himalayan porters. During the expedition, the director developed a friendship with one of them, "Little Karim", who quickly became "Mister Karim" by accompanying, with a few others, the members of the expedition to the top. Ten years later, Laurent Chevallier finds him. This film is more than the portrait of a man, it is the story of a family, a village, a population whose life has completely changed since the arrival of rich expeditions in the Himalayas.

Mister Karim

Many mountaineers as part of their activity have used cameras and films to allow us to participate through images in their adventures and their emotions. Many of them have become true film professionals: Joseph Vallot, Lionel Terray, Marcel Ichac, Renè Vernadet, Jean Afanasieff, Pierre Royer, Denis Ducroz, Kurt Diemberg and many others are among the conquerors of the image of the mountain. The film depicts the passion of these men on the highest mountains in the world... behind the lens.

When the Mountaineers Make Their Cinema

Jean-Marc Boivin had chosen the natural elements as his playground. In his quest for extremes and discoveries. By turns mountaineer, skier, hang-glider, explorer, paraglider, sailor, speleologist or base-jumper, he loved constantly exploring “terra incognita” and playing with the limits of the possible. His "career" - the word is so weak - Jean-Marc, one day, agreed to tell the strongest moments to his father who recorded everything: happiness, doubts, emotions and difficulties. In this film, which won the Human Adventure Prize at the Saint Hilaire du Touvet Free Flight Film Festival, it is Jean-Marc who himself “comments” on some of his most spectacular feats. Confronted with period documents, Jean-Marc's voice-over sheds new and moving light on the extraordinary personality of a man who once admitted "having lived all his dreams"...

Jean-Marc Boivin, Extremely Yours

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Abdul Karim Mohammad aka Little Karim served as a guide for revealed mountaineers going on high-altitude expeditions, carrying up to 25 kg of luggage on his back. On July 14, 1985, Boivin broke the world altitude jump record by taking off from the summit of the Pakistani giant Gasherbrum II at an altitude of 8,035 meters. The filmmaker Laurent Chevalier draws a film from it: "The Rare Bird". But the jack-of-all-trades of French mountaineering was not the only rare specimen on Gasherbrum II that summer. Before takeoff, it was the Balti carrier, a certain Abul Karim Mohammad alias Little Karim, a gentleman barely five feet tall who made an impression by hoisting the 16 kg (for a wingspan of five meters!) to the top. A French cameraman spots Little Karim carrying the heavy glider on his shoulders, he films his extraordinary performance. Back in France, everyone in France is captivated by the incredible strength that emanates from the small body of Little Karim who achieves during this expedition the world record for ascent of Gasherbrum 2, (8,035 m) without additional oxygen. Laurent Chevallier is shooting a second film from this expedition: "Little Karim" which will propel him into the spotlight. The director Laurent Chevallier will return to film the bearer a second time in 1997 for a film entitled "Monsieur Karim", then a third time for a complementary film on the same subject. In this third part, "Apo Karim", Abdul Karim Mohammad has become one of the greatest Himalayan carriers, capable of carrying the loads of mountaineers on peaks of 8,000 meters. Since 1985, film after film, the director Laurent Chevallier follows the evolution of this man, his family and his village, passed from the stage of peasant to that of mountain professional. A story of globalization located in the north of Pakistan, in a remote corner of the Himalayas.