Touching the Void (film) Touching the Void (film) Touching the Void is a 2003 docudrama survival film directed by Kevin MacDonald and starring Brendan Mackey, Nicholas Aaron, and Ollie Ryall. The plot concerns Joe Simpson's and Simon Yates's disastrous and near-fatal climb of Siula Grande in the Cordillera Huayhuash in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. It is based on Simpson's 1988 book of the same name. Critically acclaimed, "Touching the Void" was listed in PBS's "100 'Greatest' Documentaries of All Time". "The Guardian" described it as "the most successful documentary in British cinema history". In 1985, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, both experienced mountaineers,
Touching the Void (play) cords required to ascend the rope. Simpson could not climb up the rope, Yates could not pull him back up, the cliff was too high for Simpson to be lowered down, and they could not communicate. Yates had to make the hard decision to cut the rope in order to save his own life. Yates cut the rope, plummeting Simpson down the cliff into a deep crevasse. Exhausted and suffering from hypothermia, Yates dug himself a snow cave to wait out the storm. Assuming Simpson was dead Yates carried on descending the mountain by himself. Simpson, however, was still alive.