 special guest that I had the privilege of meeting up in the mountains in Ulsan, Korea, where we were all part of this Korean international, what was it called? Ulsan International Mountain Film Festival. Is that right? So I have here Oswald and Bartek, and I will allow you to do the honors of telling a little bit about yourself so that I can kind of start unpacking the interesting film that you made together on the mountains and the experiences you've had, and I have many questions about life, but let's start with you introducing yourselves first. Hello, so I'll allow Bartek to go first because he speaks less. Hi, so my name is Bartek and I love skiing. That's it? You get this every time, Oswald, when you go anywhere, it's okay. Yeah, it's always like this, but okay, I'll say more about me, and maybe Bartek will come with a couple of words more. So hello, my name is Oswald Rodrigo Pereira. I'm from Portuguese Health Polish, so let's say my Polish part of my brain decided that I like mountains, and five years ago I decided to go as a TV reporter for an expedition to go between winter, and since then I started producing and preparing either small short documentaries or longer documentaries about things that happen in the mountains, but what I really try to observe are the intentions and emotions that sometimes are just when faced with the highest peaks on earth, because what we see there is so extreme that I think you can see another level of humanity, of emotions, of living. I wonder if it's the deeper, more honest way of seeing human emotions, because you're faced with situations that are literally life-and-death choices sometimes, and when you see how things play out, or how people react to certain situations, I can't think of a more metaphoric way than to use a mountain as a launching pad for talking about humanity, so yeah. Okay, so that's really interesting, yeah. I think it's quite a tough, I would say, mission because there are moments that I prefer to switch off the camera. I have situations like seeing someone close to me dying, or someone being dying for like one hour and a half in front of me, and maybe some filmmakers would film it because it would make like a potential image that would be like really important for the film, but for me it was more important to think about the family of this person, and think that, and also respect, and basically you are trying to help this person, and even when you know that you will not help this person anymore, I never thought about switching on the camera because I felt like it's more important than any climb, than any film, so as I said, it's sometimes you are in very sensitive situations, and I think it's always like the most important is to be just keep your values and be a human person, not just a climber or a filmmaker, and on the other hand, sometimes you see emotions or like quite deep situations where people are exposed, and it's always a thin balance because maybe sometimes it will show a little too much, and you will hurt the protagonist. I'm not saying it's in the case of Bartek, but also in the case of other films that I did, so it's always a thin line, and I think I'd still try to keep this balance. Maybe at some point I will be already used to so many extreme situations that I will not care anymore, but for now I still try to keep this you know human vision that not everything that happens there probably it would be very attractive to be shown, but then I think it's not a reality show, you don't want to show like all the dark sides and destroy someone just because you want to make a good film. You bring up a lot of points there, I'm trying to process it right now, but the idea of the politics of framing of what you show or what you decide not to show in a film that could like you say expose certain elements that maybe some people don't want to see or you don't want to share, but I'm wondering if it comes down to your innate values to begin with of what your fundamental core issues are in how you interact with people, right? Can I just go back a little bit to talk about like the title of your film even, The Silent Escape. I'm thinking about silence and I'm thinking both of you, you were on a two-man expedition for what was it 50 days, more than 50 days up there, just the two of you, right? More or less. Yeah, so I mean obviously you have encountered people, but to have the isolation of being with just one person on such a dramatic backdrop with very limited resources, what does silence mean to you? Like what is the silence in the mountains, what do you hear in the nights and how does that kind of silence affect you as a person? Like do you, would you go crazy or is it a beautiful thing that you take in as a meditative, you know, or to what extent does it change the silence turn into something disturbing? I wouldn't always call that a silence, it's a venture in mountains, but just in a remote place and yeah, switching off internet for a month and literally doing it because you can't really turn it on, it's something special nowadays I would say, like for me at least because normally I'm every day at work, so there I can just completely get out of it and yeah, that's valuable for me. Wow, so it's power in a sense. Yeah, maybe you can call it beauty. And staying, yeah, I'm staying with just one person, I think less people, even better and easier to actually, you know, like we met on a big expedition and staying with more people in the base camp is much, much more difficult. Yeah, I would say it's a luxury to be disconnected from civilization and I don't want to sound rude, but sometimes it's even good to have some break from your friends, maybe finally if someone has one, but most of all it's like of these, like, speed that you have every day and I don't know if you can recall the last time you didn't have internet for, I don't know, 40, 30 days, because for people it's even hard to imagine that after a month you don't even have Spotify, so even in terms of music that you can listen to, you have silence on your phone, because Spotify after one month, even the sounds that, even the music, the tracks that you downloaded, they are offline, so you cannot listen to music anymore, so even on this matter it's a silence there, so I would say from one hand what Bartek said and when he says a sentence at the beginning of the film that the main goal was to run away from civilization and the internet, of course it's I would say the most important goal was to climb and ski down, but meanwhile you can understand in the film that we are happy being there, that we are happy having each other and of course after some point maybe there there can be some frictions or people will, you know, are or discuss, in our case it didn't happen actually we were more direct when we met probably other people because then you you're already in your comfort zone, you like interact with each other and suddenly you meet new people, we spent, when there is bad weather, we spent like 10 days in base camp, we didn't have anything to read because our digital books broke, so basically we were there, we were forced to talk, I'm not saying they are but people but you didn't choose them, they just decided to go on an expedition and suddenly you share your intimacy with them, if you are sick, if you feel bad, if your head, I don't know, you have some problem with your head and then you need to spend time, so you start opening with these people and suddenly you have like very good conversations with people that you never seen before and some of them you'll never see them again, so it's quite unique but yeah, so I would say from one side it's like this escape from civilization, this peace, this silence and also I would say in the mountains you dive somehow at least me because maybe I see things differently than Bartek, I think I dive deeper into myself, even the 10 days that you have to spend in base camp doing nothing, it's a tough experience but I think it teaches you like a lot about you. Yeah and then many people don't want to find a deeper self because it's uncomfortable, sometimes it's hard to do and you think I'm thinking about silence, a lot of people have, they can't handle awkward silences like even a moment of quietness, people make a laughter or a joke because we're so used to all this stimulation that we don't know how to treat silence, yeah, yeah, so you're saying that there is something that we need to kind of go beyond in order to find that deeper truth or that open up that more pure space for us to kind of, you know, search for things. Can I, you know, I also remember conversing with both of you back in Korea, what struck me and my big takeaway from this mountain film festival was that the idea of our approach to the mountains not to generalize but is very different in the so-called Western approach in terms of conquering the mountain, the goal of to achieve the top as opposed to the Asian way, if you will, of a more philosophical approach of the relationship or a respect for the mountain. How do you both feel about that? Is it about getting to the top? I think probably it's again different for us because like Bartek said, it's an adventure for him, some sort of like spending free time. For me, I think it's a bigger, I take it as a challenge. I'm not sure if I think about the mountains in a philosophical way, but probably it's some internal trip as well. I mean, when I'm at the expedition, I really, I become more quiet, peaceful. I return with a different mindset. So I would say in my case, it's a combination of both like the sports side, because of course, you are there because you want to climb the mountain. That's why you went there. But on the other hand, I said, I would say this time that you spend with yourself, with another person, the partnership you create, the bond, means that you return home changed. And I think for the better, and it doesn't mean that you are a better person, but you are more self-confident and you know more about yourself. You change every time you come back from the mountain, like each trip. That's for sure. And I know people that sometimes they go for like a week of this solitude, I don't know how to call it, like treats that they don't talk for a week or something. And I say, well, I don't need that because I've been like so many times in the mountains that you spend so many hours alone and in extreme situations. But usually you are like really in peace. When you climb, you don't think about like the dangers. I think you go in some slow motion state of mind that I don't need like meditation at home because I go like those for my life. Your process up the mountain is already very meditative. Is it for you also, Bartek? Is it meditative for you or is it more of a thrill for you? Like what is it that drives you to do this? And you are by the way skiing down the mountain. You are not just climbing down like normal people. Yeah. So it's mostly an adventure for me and a perfect way of spending holidays. Yeah. But besides, of course, it helps to understand how valuable normal things are. So when you come back, normal bad family and so on, you enjoy much, much, much more. So it helps in some way as I also said. Yeah. I think we under, well, I think we all know the power of the mountain, but maybe a lot of us aren't willing to do it or until we do it, do we know the life-changing powers it has. So for example, my daughter, when she went for a three month hiking trip around the mountains, she came back and she used to be a dancer and she went straight into a ballet studio and she couldn't handle it. She said she couldn't function with four walls with mirrors. She's like, why can't, how do people function looking at themselves and being in a constricted space when she had the world, she had like sleeping under the stars, she couldn't go back. And it's interesting, you know, how it transforms you. Yeah, I'll say sometimes it's even, I would say for me, when I come back from the expedition in mountains, it's even hard to talk to people. Because on every expedition, it's different, of course, but after this one, we're like together 50 days. And I think three weeks later, we went on a run, a relay run 400 kilometers to the seaside of Poland. At the end, there was an after party. And there were like, I don't know, 100 people, maybe 200. And a friend of us came to us and said, guys, maybe we should stop talking to each other because you spent all of this so many days. And I don't know, like somehow, instinctively, we're searching for each other in the crowd, like we are, I don't know, partners or we have a special bond, which is maybe dangerous. But I would say back to the time after the expedition, that you get used to one person that you share everything with, then suddenly when you have 50 persons around you asking you questions like touching your face, which is burned by the sun, and how are your frostbites, blah, blah, blah, how was the expedition. And you hear like the same question so many times. After some point, even me and I'm a social person, I would like, okay, I'll eat some holidays. And maybe I'd like to go back again to spend like two, three days in the mountains to have like a decompression time. So yeah, I would say, yeah, you get used to like your solitude, just your partner, you and freedom. But of course, then you have the practical things, like Bartek said, you have nice food at home, you have your bed, you can take a shower and change clothes after 60 days, which is of course, I mean, civilization has nice things. And I remember when I come back from Monastery in winter, and some days later, it was the birthday of my friend, and I went to a club and they were like, it was quite a post club, you know, people were ordering, I don't know, champagne bottles of some alcohol or whatever, whatever. And I look at these people and I thought I felt like so distant, because I just came back from a, from a village, Samagon, and there was a woman that was about to give birth. And of course, she couldn't afford to fly with the helicopter to Kathmandu. So all the village like gathered money to make her fly. But before she made it to Kathmandu, she already gave birth somewhere there in the Halipat. So I thought about these women and then I saw these people, you know, in the club, like having fun. And I felt somehow disconnected. But then I thought to myself, okay, but the other, I would say civilization or culture in the small village, it's neither mine. I mean, I don't belong there. But I also felt that I neither I don't belong to the place where people have already, you know, a luxury life and they can think about like how they dress to go out or something. And there was this woman giving birth. So I'll say the time after the expedition is always like this, this time that I feel like between two worlds. Yeah. And it also seems like there are things that happen, you have these encounters that force you or maybe naturally allow you to reassess what's important in life. But you know, back to your point about the woman giving birth, I was thinking, do you think that it's really, is there a gendered space on the mountain? Do you think that women have to endure different types of challenges up the mountain? Do you think it's equal? Do you think that, you know, we have to think of it in different ways? Yeah. I think that, first of all, physically. So that's a physical challenge, right? And of course, here, there are natural differences. And we have the same actually rules, right? We climb the mountain and that's it. So in this regard, because you as women have, you know, much, much bigger challenge to face. Yeah, I would say there was once a test, a survey, and they compared like women that decided to start in an ultra marathon and men. And for men, usually it was like a bet on New Year's Eve, oh, I'm gonna marathon or run a half marathon or ultra marathon. And they compared that there was a bigger percentage of women that decided to take part in an ultra marathon that finished the race. So we would say that usually for male, it's easier to decide to, you know, jump into a deep water, but they don't accomplish. So this shows that women, when they decide for something, I think the mental is somehow stronger. But as Bartek said, like, if we think about like physics and natural like capacity, of course, I would say, I mean, not climbing because I think in the road climbing, the difference is smoother. But in Himalayas, we're basically on our style of expedition. What does it mean? Which means carrying a heavy backpack, spending a lot of hours, not even climbing sometimes, but walking in deep snow. And then setting at then, like being under adverse conditions of weather and everything. So I would say in terms of body, like, men have better, better solutions, they are better prepared for this. But I would say it depends on every individual because, yeah, I mean, there are women stronger than men. But I would say in general, also like the physiology of women and et cetera. Also I would say maybe sometimes the intimacy, like you don't have that much, you know, hygienic possibilities, like taking care of yourself. So I would say in these terms, it's a much bigger challenge for women, not mentally, but in terms of things that you cannot train for. Right. Yeah. I thank you for distinguishing that. I have one more question and I don't know, and this is kind of a big, heavy one and I don't know how we can end it on time, but try. But you know, the question of ethics, because I'll never forget that powerful story that you told me, you know, and the reason you're in Spain right now is that you went to do a speech for Carlos, who you actually saved, who had a broken leg on your expedition, right. And it's part of in your film. And so you went, it wasn't part of your plan. And this came to you and you both decided to go back up there to save him. Where, you know, this was a positive case, but in some cases, maybe where some people think, okay, well, what are the chances of somebody being saved? How do you make these hard life decisions of whether you're going to risk your life for the sake of saving someone else? And what does that mean for everyone? You know, can you talk a little bit about that? So maybe I'll start and I had already a situation in my life when I crossed the line of what's safe for me. And I was angry at myself that I decided to stay and help someone. But this time it wasn't the case. When we made the decision, when we made the decision, first of all, it was obvious for us that if we can help, we'll go. But also, we never thought that we were risking our life. We're just thinking we are helping someone. Of course, just in short words, when you are like in a nice hotel and your breakfast shower after 50 days of expedition, and you're in your comfort zone and suddenly you are launched. Again, any city based and then suddenly you are on camp two on the mountain that you're like, it's done. I can go home. It's a strange experience. But I think we never hesitated a minute. And I think when we talk about partnership and us like working well together, it's also important not to have like the climbing speed or something. It's the values that will decide about the life. And the values will decide about our partnership. So yeah, we never fought for a while. And even when we were treated here in Spain by his family and his friends, and they stood up and gave us like an abortion applause. And we felt like really humble, but like that's not necessary. We did what should be normal. Like don't call us like Superman or something because we'd like everyone be like this. And we are not saying this, you know, because it's just words. We just think that it should be normal for everyone. Unfortunately, it's not. Some people are thinking, well, I have this mission. I trained so hard for it to get to the mountain. Nothing's going to come in my way. Or, you know, they think other ways that just resituated. Even when we are going to the speech, we spoke with the interpreter and she asked us like, do you think people stuck when they see an accident to help people or they take pictures of the accident? I was like, yeah, I think usually most of the people, if you think of them, they would just pass, you know, slow down for a while, provoke another accident, but they wouldn't stop to ask if everything was okay. Because they always think, oh, someone will take care of it better than me. And maybe that's the truth. But here in this case, we just thought if we can be useful, of course, we are going there. And at the end, well, the situation was quite tough and we're quite useful to the rescue operation of Carlos. But yeah, unfortunately, it's not. It's a sad thing. But, well, we'll try to keep our values as long as possible. And I think what we have in the climbing spirit, what I have in my film, ethics and etc., if we would just say this and then kind of situation like with the rescue operation with Carlos and we wouldn't move a finger, these would be empty words. So I think this shows that when we talk about this, we're really believing these values and these compartments. Yeah, yeah. And you can't train for that. It's your innate value, I think. And you've seen a lot on, I think the mountain again, revealing the real human nature of different types of people. I think, remember, you also once mentioning that there's a statistic side to some people who attach themselves to the mountains for the reasons for maybe being closer to death. I don't know. I'm not trying to distort. But can you tell a little bit about that mental space of that attraction? Well, yeah, there was this, I mean, some scientific research by a university from Canada, that basically people that went out from trauma develop a better preparation for extreme sports. And in this case, it was compared to mountains. And yeah, so I would say when you come from tough situations, sometimes you think nothing worse will happen in my life. So when you are in the mountains and you are freezing, climbing and you are tired, but then you think, yeah, but I'm doing this for myself. I paid to be here, like big amount of money, because I needed to buy a permit and everything. So thinking, it's basically my holidays, no one forced me to do this. So I would say whatever, I mean, of course, it depends on the approach of every person. But I would say in my case, whatever I passed in the past, made me stronger. And I think when I have like good like crisis, I go back to some of the tough moments of my life. And I just remember like you could be there. But you are right now here, and you decided and you are a free person, and you decided to be here. So take some advantage and enjoy the process, even if it's minus 30 degrees. Yeah, process indeed. And I and unfortunately, we're probably out of time to talk so much about your process, but leave us with something. Bartek, you're still, you know, you're a young, crazy athlete who does these like, you know, you know, crazy stunts. And you're a ski instructor, and you're, you know, a true alpinist. What, you know, going forward, are there things that you want to accomplish in life? Or is this your process of doing something that, you know, you just can do now? What are your thoughts on life? Well, I would just say, I want to enjoy life and have fun. And you're doing that? That's it. Yeah, I'm trying to. Okay. But it's good for now. Okay, great. Thank you. And also, what is, what is your life mission? I mean, you've been doing so much coming to you. I feel there's so much. I like, I like to have fun as well, of course, like Bartek said. Bartek, does he want to have fun? Or is all the world too serious? No, I'm not serious at all. I just like, I have a couple of sides of my face to show to people. So that's a serious one. But I mean, I'm older than Bartek. So I'm 39 years old. And of course, probably I spent more time on this earth. So I have more time to think, and I'm overfinger for thinking person. So yeah, I would say, like, I always like to, at first, when I was a kid, to read stories or big adventures of, like, history of people, story of people. Then when I become a TV reporter, it's part, it's like the core of your job is searching for stories and find a way to tell about them. Then it turned into climbing and filming. So I would say, like, it's a, it's a process, it's a path. And like, there is this sentence at the beginning of the film that if you search for a goal, you become empty when you find it. But whoever finds a path will always carry the goal inside. So I would say, I cannot even say what's my goal, because it's somewhere there. It's not the climb. I can say what's my goal for next year. It's going again with Bartek to $8,000 for Bartek to ski down. For me to make the film, most of all, for us to come back alive and be friends. But that would say, like, my life goal, well, it's still like so far away that I cannot even think about this. So for now, I enjoy the path and I'm happy with myself. I'm in peace with myself. And I would say that's one of them. I think that that's the most important thing in my life. I was asked, like, a month or two months ago by a young club member from our climbing club, where do I see myself in 10, 20 years? What I want to accomplish in that month. And I think about five years ago, like what happened. And then I think about, like, I don't know, my friends that live in Ukraine, how their life changed in a year and a half, how COVID changed our life. Like, at some point, you know, you are not allowed to travel in the world. So I'll say, yeah, let's go step by step, small goals and enjoy the path. I like that. I think that's what we're going to leave it with. Enjoy the path. I think that's the biggest takeaway I have, because you are taking your paths and we all have our own paths and they can be bumpy. They can be smooth, but they are our processes. And it's so important to enjoy and appreciate that process. So thank you for sharing a glimpse of your processes, because we learn so much from stories like yours. And good luck with your next adventures and your next films. Look forward to seeing and hope we can see each other again in person in the near future. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to meet you in South Korea and spend this time with you. And thank you also for your insights about the film and our persons. And tell people how we can look for your film. So for now, the film will be shown on a tour, a mountainous stage. It will be shown in 20 countries, 250 locations, also apart from Europe in USA, in Canada and Australia. And so let's say until spring, I'll be just showing these in festivals. But at some later stage, probably it will be available online, because I'd like more people to learn stories, be sure to see how and some and adventure is more big. Oh, he just zips down so gracefully like it's nothing. Okay, great. Thank you again and good luck with your next projects. You both are amazing people.