Documentary on Everest summiteer Nishat Majumdar to premiere at Mountain Film Festival

The Mountain Film Festival returns to Dhaka on November 21 with a programme that places mountaineering, adventure and human perseverance at its centre. The one-day event, staged at the Liberation War Museum in Agargaon, will open with the premiere of a short documentary about Bangladesh's first woman to summit Everest, Nishat Majumdar.

Titled "Summit is a Woman", the 13-minute, 5-second film is directed by Muntasir Mamun and chronicles the preparation, physical trials and mental resolve that carried Nishat to Everest's peak. The documentary aims to capture not only the technical difficulties of high-altitude climbing but the personal cost and determination behind a landmark achievement in Bangladeshi mountaineering.

Organisers say the festival will screen seven films from Canada, the United States, Austria, Spain and France alongside the premiere. The selection reflects the festival's hybrid focus on adventure, environment and human stories—programming that has made mountain film events a popular vehicle for conservation messages and tales of resilience.

The Mountain Film Festival has international roots. It began in Banff, Alberta, in 1975 when three Canadian climbers and educators—John Amatt, Chic Scott and Evelyn Murch—conceived a small festival to share films about mountains, exploration and culture. What began as a regional event quickly grew into the Banff Mountain Film Festival and, by the 1980s, expanded globally. Today, the Banff programme is screened in more than 40 countries and hundreds of cities, bringing audiences stories of adventure, nature conservation and human endurance.

In Bangladesh, the festival format has been presented since 2010 through the efforts of local organisers under the Keokradong banner, offering a platform for international mountain cinema and a space to celebrate regional stories of exploration and environmental stewardship.

For viewers in Dhaka, the screening of "Summit is a Woman" will be both an introduction to Nishat Majumdar's singular achievement and a reminder of the physical and institutional hurdles female mountaineers often face. The festival's international line-up further frames her story within a wider conversation about access, climate impact on mountain regions, and the cultural meanings of crossing physical frontiers.