Pat Falvey left school at fifteen, barely able to write who, by his twenties, had amassed a multi-million property fortune. However, by the age of twenty-nine he had lost his business and his family and in despair nearly took his own life. A chance meeting took him hill walking and literally saved him. He vowed to climb Mount Everest and, within six years, became part of a successful Irish expedition. He has climbed Mount Everest four times, reaching the summit twice.
Pat is the only man in the world to have also completed the seven summits twice, and last year walked to the South Pole to honour the memory of the explorers Ernest Shackleton and Tom Crean with one of the world’s most accomplished women mountaineers, Clare O’Leary. Several of his close friends, including Irishman Ger O’Donnell, died in last year's K2 climb but Falvey is committed to being a 21st century explorer – and to bringing what he has learnt on the mountain back into the boardrooms that both made and nearly broke him. This documentary tells the extraordinary story of Pat's life and follows him in his latest adventures to the extremes of life, nature and the planet.
The documentary’s team co-ordinator, Anita Walsh tells IFTN: “The project started shooting in January of this year and is set to continue until April or May of this year. We shot in Kerry, Cork and Dublin and we’ll also have Val shooting footage himself in the North Pole with bullet cameras as he treks.”
‘Pat Falvey: My Private Everest’ is directed and produced by Helen Shaw (Is It Just Me?) and the project’s cinematographers are Barry MacNeill (Xposé) and Niall Foley (Greenfingers). It is expected that the project will be completed in December of this year following its post production which will be carried out in Dublin’s Lotus Media.
