Ahead of the premiere at the 2022 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, the first trailer debuted for the documentary Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest, the feature film directorial debut of filmmaker Nancy Svendsen.
Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest brings to life the untold and inspiring story of Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, the first Nepali woman to summit Mt. Everest who, in her quest, awakened her country to the entrenched inequalities confronted and endured by women and in Nepal.
Watch the first trailer for Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest
Filmmaker Nancy Anne Svendsen grew up in small towns in Iowa. Since childhood, she has been passionate about bringing people together to tell stories. A voracious young reader, Nancy was influenced by women writers and stories of courageous women. They enthralled her. Nancy deeply admired her mother who lifted herself out of rural poverty in Iowa to secure an education and earned a living as an educator. Her mother’s efforts to live a bigger life outside of her rural boundaries ultimately influenced Nancy in all of her personal and professional pursuits. After finishing college and business school, Nancy spent more than the next two decades focusing her energies in leadership positions in various facets of the healthcare industry.
Returning to her storytelling roots, Nancy became an independent filmmaker based in Northern California, beginning with a short documentary entitled Svend (2013) about an effort to preserve a historic wooden boat class in the San Francisco Bay. Combining her love of storytelling with her experience running large organizations and her passion for women’s rights, Nancy founded the Follow Your Dream Foundation Inc., a 501(c)3 organization, as a place to incubate and launch powerful stories that can influence people’s lives. Exposure to the story of Pasang Lhamu Sherpa by Pasang’s brother, who is Nancy’s brother-in-law, would spark a deep desire to tell Pasang’s story, a quest that would culminate some ten years later with the release in 2022 of her documentary feature film, Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest.
An active musician, Nancy Svendsen lives in Marin County, California with her husband and their two children. Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest is her feature film directorial debut.