My name is Rachel Blair, and I am the co-director and executive producer of the short documentary "From the Ground Up: The Andean Women Remaking the Mountaineering World."

For this documentary, filmmaker Skyler Purwins and I followed indigenous Peruvian mountaineers Yudith Mamani and Lixayda Yudith into the Cordillera Vilcanota range, tracing their journeys from indigenous communities to the highest peaks of the Andes. The film offers a window into a cultural shift happening in the Andean mountaineering world, driven by women reconnecting with what it means to lead, and to live alongside the mountains.

We are premiering the film in our home in the Pacific Northwest, and are now beginning to raise funds to support further promotion, festival submissions, and to recover a portion of production costs. Production was funded entirely out of our own pockets because we believe that stories like these are worth telling. The conversations, connections, and sense of community we have seen this film spark have made every penny worth it.

If you enjoyed the film, please consider donating to help us share it with a wider audience through film festivals and future events like this one. Any contribution, however small, goes directly toward getting this story in front of the audiences it deserves, and helping us recover a portion of the costs that went into making it.