Vasarhelyi's films as a director include "Meru" (Oscars Shortlist 2016 Sundance Audience Award 2015) "Incorruptible" (Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award 2016) "Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love" (Oscilloscope, 2009), which premiered at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals "A Normal Life" (Tribeca Film Festival, Best Documentary 2003) and "Touba" (SXSW, Special Jury Prize Best Cinematography 2013). Co-directed with Jimmy Chin, the film offers an intimate, unflinching portrait of rock climber Alex Honnold, as he prepares for and then achieves his lifelong dream: to climb the face of the world's most famous rock. He is sponsored by The North Face, among others.Īward-winning filmmaker Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is the director and producer of FREE SOLO, from National Geographic Documentary Films. To this day, he maintains his simple "dirtbag-climber" existence, living out of his van, donating a significant portion of his income to the Honnold Foundation, and traveling the world in search of the next great vertical adventure.
Honnold is the founder of the Honnold Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes solar energy access worldwide.
Honnold has been profiled by "60 Minutes" and The New York Times, been featured on the cover of National Geographic, appeared in international television commercials and starred in numerous adventure films, including the Emmy-nominated "Alone on the Wall." A gifted but hard-working athlete, he is known as much for his humble, self-effacing attitude as he is for the dizzyingly tall cliffs he has climbed without a rope to protect him if he falls. Alex Honnold is a professional adventure rock climber whose audacious free solo ascents of America's biggest cliffs have made him one of the most recognized and followed climbers in the world.