The film “Everest”, based on the 1996 disaster in which eight people died in a blizzard on the world’s highest mountain, will open the 72nd Venice Film Festival. Jason Clarke, Sam Worthington, Keira Knightley, Emily Watson and Jake Gyllenhaal star in the film by Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur that will have its world premiere on the festival’s opening day, Sept 2. Jon Krakauer, an American mountaineer, wrote a best-selling blow-by-blow account of the 1996 tragedy, “Into Thin Air”, and features as a character in “Everest”, played by Michael Kelly.
