How Wild Life protagonist Kris Tompkins overcame his grief to achieve something incredible for the planet

The film couple Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin made a name for themselves by making documentaries about people who achieve the unthinkable – rope climber Alex Honnold in the Oscar-winning film Only freeor out the divers The rescue who against all odds rescued a group of Thai children stranded in a flooded cave.

Coincidentally, the heroes of her most famous films were men, but in her latest documentary wild lifeThe focus largely shifts to one woman, Patagonia conservationist and former CEO Kris Tompkins.

“It was a lot of fun to make a film that revolves around a woman,” remarked Vasarhelyi at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, where the film was screened last month. wild lifeby National Geographic and Picturehouse, has just expanded to theaters in Southern California, including Los Angeles, as well as the San Francisco Bay Area, after opening in New York and DC this past weekend.

The documentary tells the love story of Kris and her late husband, Doug Tompkins, founder of The North Face and co-founder of retailer Esprit. They met in mid-life at a time when Doug had retired from the industry to live in the rugged lands of remote Chile and Kris was also longing for a radical change in existence. Together they began to acquire land in Chile and Argentina on a large scale, not for their own amusement, but with the intention of giving it to those countries to build large national parks.

In the film, Kris reads from her diaries about her stay with Doug in Chile. “I feel the memories of almost 20 years in this valley. Years of joy, pain, doubt and confirmation… Few have lived here like us.”

Kris Tompkins admitted to Deadline that it took some convincing to get her to agree to the documentary, but perhaps not for the reasons you’d expect. She says that rather than hoping to convey an idealized image of herself, she wanted to make sure the film felt unvarnished.

“I didn’t want it to be some fluff. I hope it was very honest,” Kris tells Deadline. “I gave them everything – 26 years of magazines, all photography, everything. When I came in, I was all in. But it took me a while to make up my mind.

wild life examines the arduous process the Tompkins went through to convince the governments of Chile and Argentina that their motives were pure and that they were not trying to eat up land as part of a nefarious plan that would endanger those countries’ national security do not set Along the way, the two faced death threats and secret surveillance from shady rivals.

“About four or five years after it started in Chile, someone sent me a book about the history of Grand Teton National Park [in Wyoming]. And I realized it took 50 or 60 years to create it, and it was really a shootout process,” notes Kris. If we had read it so long ago, we would have understood so much more – first of all, how to deal with the threats and everything that happened to us, but also be prepared that wherever you are, these types of conflicts are inherent and will take place.

Due to a tragic event, the enormous conservation project almost fell apart. In 2015, Doug kayaked on Lake General Carrera in Chile with a group of friends, including Yvon Chouinard, founder of the outdoor brand Patagonia, and Rick Ridgeway, a rock climber and filmmaker. Gusty winds created large waves and the Tompkins and Ridgeway kayaks capsized in the icy water. Ridgeway survived, but Doug succumbed to severe hypothermia.

Rick Ridgeway, an old friend of co-director Jimmy Chin, appears in the film and shares his memories of that fateful day.

“There was an interview we did in Patagonia, near the lake where Doug died, where we had our accident. And it was hard because I had to relive it,” Ridgeway tells Deadline. “Even though it was emotional, I had no warning at all to relive it on camera with Jimmy behind the camera…Jimmy and I are such good friends and I’ve dated him many times. difficult circumstances.”

Speaking in Copenhagen, Chin recalled: “There were a couple of interviews where we had to stop because the whole crew was crying. How sure, a couple of interviews with Kris in the beginning when Doug’s death was very raw and she basically just blew on us. And it was really, really emotional.”

Immediately after Doug’s death, Kris found himself at a crossroads – either to be consumed by deep grief or to continue with the creation of the national parks. As the film shows, she absorbed the strength to continue. The vision to create national parks has become a reality, and thanks to the continued work of the non-profit organization Tompkins Conservation, almost 15 million hectares of pristine wilderness in Chile and Argentina are protected forever.

Today, Tompkins Conservation is dedicated not only to preserving wild areas, but also to reintroducing species native to these habitats and threatened with extinction.

“When we bought the first property in Iberá, in northeastern Argentina, in 1997, almost everyone was there [creature] was missing, from the Jaguar down,” says Kris. “Then we really made a commitment and it changed our work forever… Working with extinct species is now at least half of our work.”

Tompkins, Ridgeway and Patagonia’s Chouinard joined the filmmakers for a screening of wild life Earlier this month at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A few months ago, Chouinard announced that he would transfer ownership of Patagonia to a collective and donate all profits to fight climate change, protect wildlife and preserve biodiversity.

“The film inspires people to follow in the footsteps of Kris, Doug and Yvon, but that doesn’t mean you have to create new national parks or donate your $3 billion business to planet earth,” notes Ridgeway. “We hope that the film will inspire people, as I told the audience [in New York], use the tools that come in your box. As the climbers say, you don’t take the last step until you’ve taken the first step. And you have to commit. And as Doug always said, record it and then find out. But committed. Take that step.”

Ridgeway added: “It doesn’t mean we’re all rich enough to be philanthropists, but we can all get involved in supporting the groups on the ground doing the work, the hard work, to protect wild places and wildlife. save.” to protect. And they all need help. They all need volunteers.”

Kris Tompkins says she remains focused on the future.

“We want our heritage in Chile and Argentina to become desolate again. And these are the people we have been working with for decades,” she says. “And because Doug died and I’m going to die one day – we know that – I did it [these initiatives] both independent… So in my book it is our legacy – not so much what we did in the first 30 years, but what will happen in the next 50 years for the second and third generations of people.