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,
The Mountaineers (opera) had a new work ready. Somerville is credited with the conception of "The Mountaineers". He was travelling in a train through the Rhine Valley when the idea came to him: "I had been glancing idly at a guide book, but the opening lines of a quaint legendary tale relating to some little village in the mountains suddenly held my interest, and when I had read it through I realised that here was the ideal story for an opera. Only the climax would have to be altered, for the story ended on a tragic note." Somerville showed "The Mountaineers" to Workman,