Berlin: Visit Films Takes ‘The Sanctity of Space’ (EXCLUSIVE)

By John Hopewell

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – New York-based Visit Films has acquired international sales rights to doc “The Sanctity of Space,” co-directed by Renan Ozturk.

Ozturk was one of the cinematographers and climbers on “Meru,” the breakthrough film of “Free Solo” directors Jimmy Chin and E. Chai Vasarhely.

Also a DP and and director of high-altitude scenes on “Sherpa,” which Variety acclaimed as packing a “visual and emotional punch,” Ozturk co-directs “The Sanctity of Space” with climber-writer Freddie Wilkinson.

will be presenting a private promo of the film, currently in post-production, to key partners at the EFM.

“The Sanctity of Space” follows climbing buddies Ozturk, Wilkinson and Zack Smith as they retrace the steps of legendary mountaineer, explorer and photographer Bradford Washburn, who put up many of the first ascents in Alaska.

Inspired by Washburn’s photographs of Alaska’s Denali National Park in Alaska from 75 years ago, “The Sanctity of Space” weaves Washburn’s extraordinary story with the trio’s obsession to traverse the Mooses Tooth massif, which contains some of Alaska’s most forbidding peaks.