The Short Season: Eminence
2016 · 8m · Canada
Directed by Jeff Simpson
Genres: adventure, documentary
Tones: contemplative, tense
Deep in Canada's Northwest territories and just outside the Arctic Circle, Matt Elder is on the hunting trip of a lifetime, battling snow, rain, and terrifying terrain to track down Dall sheep in the Mackenzie Mountains.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A straight documentary about mountaineering ambition—exactly the kind of earnest, consensus-friendly premise that usually puts me to sleep, and this one doesn't subvert a single expectation.
Simpson locates his film in the lineage of classical mountaineering cinema with composed framing and a measured pace that respects both the landscape and the existential weight of the endeavor; formally assured, if somewhat traditional.
The decision to let silence and breathing carry the tension rather than swelling score or voiceover is what makes those final sequences breathtaking—a small, deliberate choice that transforms documentary observation into something genuinely claustrophobic and immediate.