Where Was ‘Tenzing’ Filmed? Inside the Extreme Alpine Sets in Nepal and New Zealand.

Tenzing filmed in locations across New Zealand and Nepal. ( orgay, alongside mountaineer Edmund Hillary, made the first ascent of Mount Everest. Usually, the names are reversed, but Tenzing—Apple TV+’s new feature film about the first summit of the world’s highest mountain—takes this historic mountaineering figure out of the shadow and into the foreground. Both men stood on the 29,032-foot peak together, but Tenzing, a highly experienced Nepali-Indian Sherpa who spent two decades pioneering Himalayan routes, had not been the main focus of this moment in mountaineering history until now.

The first ascent of Everest has often been told as a story of British achievement, as it was funded by the Royal Geographical Society, without much focus on the Himalayan climber’s role and his little-known origin story. The film’s director Jennifer Peedom first traveled to Everest more than 20 years ago and said in her director’s statement she left changed by the people who work in its shadow. Her 2015 documentary Sherpa focuses on the lives of Himalayan guides and the human side of mountaineering around Mount Everest.

Now Tenzing, her first feature film, shifts the focus to Tenzing Norgay (Genden Phuntsok), who made history alongside Edmund Hillary (Tom Hiddleston) in an authentic, visceral film that rejected green screens and studio sets. Instead, the crew shot in sub-zero alpine conditions across Nepal and New Zealand, capturing visceral climbing footage on real glaciers, rock walls, and crevasses. The production across these two countries ultimately connects Tenzing’s heritage in Nepal with Hillary’s national significance in New Zealand where he was from.

We sat down with Tenzing’s cinematographer, Stefan Duscio, to find out what it was like to recreate the historic first summit of Mount Everest, filming in extreme environments. In 2024, Peedom and Duscio scouted locations across Nepal to establish Tenzing’s early life on the Tibetan Plateau, Nepal, and India. They intended to capture cultural and lower-elevation scenes in Nepal, while taking the technical alpine sequences to the Southern Alps of New Zealand.

We wanted to do as much of the movie as possible in Nepal, and then really only take the high-altitude alpine sequences to New Zealand because it was safer to film those there at a lower altitude,” Duscio tells Outside. The New Zealand peaks are at a low-enough elevation that oxygen wasn’t needed while filming on them. The filmmakers enlisted veteran New Zealand mountaineer Guy Cotter, CEO of Adventure Consultants and an Everest expedition leader of 25 years, as mountain safety supervisor.

He was part of the first commercially guided expedition on Everest in 1992. Cotter suggested the region around Aoraki, also known as Mount Cook, in the South Island of New Zealand, to be a good match for the Himalayas and Everest. New Zealand’s Aoraki still has extensive glaciers, icefalls, and seracs.