The opening night of the Ashfield FilmFest on Friday welcomed attendees back to “Hillywood” for the screening of a feature film that an Ashfield native played a key role in bringing to the big screen.
“Girl Climber,” released in May 2025, has been added to the catalogue of movies and documentaries on Netflix. Among the credits is Galen Knowles, an Ashfield native and former FilmFest Youth Award winner, who served as an executive producer.
The documentary follows Emily Harrington, a professional mountaineer and rock climber, as she attempts to climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in less than 24 hours. The film showcases her struggles and successes in this endeavor, and the sexism and misogyny that she faced while participating in a sport that is male-dominated.
“This film is about sport, identity and coming back to your roots,” Knowles said. “It’s an absolute honor to bring this film back to my hometown, back to this very stage. Last time I was on [this] stage was I think in 2009. … This is where it all began. So it’s really, really an honor to bring it back.”
Before the feature presentation started, Harrington delivered a pre-recorded video message to those gathered at Ashfield Town Hall, thanking them for watching her journey.
After the documentary screening, there was a panel featuring Jenn Flemming, another professional climber, and Aisha McAdams, an ultrarunner and photographer who is the focus of her own documentary, “Learning to Fly.” Also present on the panel was Knowles, and the discussion was moderated by Cynthia Fisher, owner of Big Bang Mosaics.
One of the last questions asked about the name of the film, “Girl Climber.” Acknowledging that when Flemming answered a previous question she used the word “woman” instead of “girl,” Fisher asked the two athletes and Knowles how they felt about the title of the movie.
“I would have vetoed it, but I’m not the most important voice in the room,” Knowles said on the documentary’s title. “There are good titles, there are bad titles, but at the end of the day a title is a title and it stands as your brand. We ran through several different options early on, and there wasn’t a perfect title; it stood as ‘The Emily Harrington Doc’ for the longest time. … [Sometimes it’s not decided] until the very end, which is what I think happened with ‘Girl Climber.'”
McAdams said that after going through a similar process with her documentary, she can understand how hard it is to come up with a snappy title, saying that it was validating to hear that Knowles and the crew of “Girl Climber” had a similar experience. Flemming added that at 42 years old, she’s “more inclined to say woman than girl.”
“We have a laundry list of things, and I was like, ‘I don’t like this name, I don’t like this name,'” McAdams said. “Personally, I understand how difficult it is.”
The documentary crew followed Harrington’s four attempts to climb El Capitan over the roughly 90-minute film, with her successful climb in less than 24 hours coming on the fourth attempt in November 2020. Fisher asked the three panelists whether they thought the film would still be a story of success if Harrington had not completed the ascent.
“My brain immediately goes to, ‘Of course it would be,'” Flemming said. “There probably would’ve been different ways to focus the story in the end that would have been just as beautiful. You see in small clips of her at the end her getting married, the birth of her son … obviously, that was the backdrop to the story.”
Knowles, however, said he doesn’t believe the movie would have received funding if Harrington hadn’t completed the climb.
“I don’t think that Red Bull would have gotten behind it had she not achieved the goal,” Knowles said, adding that it’s an interesting commentary that movies about men who fail have consistently made it to the big screen.
“I agree with my fellow panelists that there is a beautiful story to be told there and Emily as a character is so worth the screentime that she takes up,” Knowles continued. “However, the commercial success of the film when going out and pitching the idea, in documentaries, is so often achievement-based.”
Members of the audience were able to ask questions as well. Resident Stewart “Buz” Eisenberg asked how the camera crews were able to capture Harrington as she was making her ascent. Knowles explained that the crew was attached to ropes and could follow Harrington up.
Flemming added that if Harrington had used the same ropes on her ascent, it would have been considered cheating, as there is a low risk of fall/injury. Members of the crew, on the other hand, could essentially pull themselves up the cliffside.
Intertwined with the main focus of the documentary (climbing El Capitan in less than 24 hours) was another focus on the timeline that Harrington had set for herself. At 34 years old during her successful climb, she said to the camera crew that she didn’t have many more chances to achieve this goal, as she eventually wanted to start a family.
Along with that, there was a sense from Harrington that her accomplishment or failure would be extrapolated to women across all fields and all sports, a sentiment that was echoed by McAdams and Flemming.
“In my own personal experience, running was the first form of confidence in my life. It was the first time I had thought that I was good at something,” McAdams said. “I think because I was raised in such a big … family, it wasn’t always trying to prove that being the girl [didn’t matter], it was more of just trying to prove myself. … There’s a constant chatter always in my mind that maybe my male counterparts don’t have. … There’s always a question of, ‘What’s my timeline?'”
“I always felt the tension there, kind of wanting my accomplishments to stand as accomplishments for anyone, for any climber,” Flemming added. “What happened very often was [the accomplishments] got put into the box of, ‘Oh, these are the first female ascents.'”
Flemming went on to say that sometimes all it takes is to be approached by younger women and to receive positive reinforcement to continue in their sport.
