EXTREME PERFORMANCE
An ascent and ski descent from 8,516 metres under human power.
LHOTSE · 8,516 M · FEATURE DOCUMENTARY
WITHOUT OXYGENBEZ KYSLÍKU
An ascent and ski descent of Lhotse without supplemental oxygen. A feature documentary about the limits of human performance — and decisions that cannot be undone.
8,516 Msummit of Lhotse
0 Lsupplemental oxygen
70+ MINfeature documentary
8,000 Mbeginning of the death zone
Project
At the altitude where the body starts to fail, the real story begins.
Without Oxygen follows Ondřej Novák through years of preparation for an attempt to climb the fourth-highest mountain on Earth and ski down without supplemental oxygen.
This is not a story about collecting summits. It is about decisions in an environment where every mistake can be final. About the price of ambition, responsibility to the team, and what remains of a person when certainty, comfort and air are stripped away.
SCIENCE IN THE FIELD
Continuous physiological data from an environment no laboratory can truly reproduce.
FILM WITHOUT FILTERS
Preparation, doubt, relationships, crisis decisions and the expedition itself.
HIGHER THAN DOUBT. LOWER THAN EGO.
A place where preparation, the team and respect for the mountain decide what happens next.
Expedition
The altitude profile is not a map of success. It is a map of risk.
Lhotse
8 516 m
Camp 4
approx. 7 900 m
Camp 3
approx. 7 200 m
Camp 2
approx. 6 400 m
Camp 1
approx. 6 100 m
Base Camp
5 364 m
The route to Lhotse leads through the Khumbu Icefall and a system of high camps. With every metre, time, strength and margin for error shrink. Reaching the summit is not the end of the project — the ski descent follows.
The goal is not only to get up. The goal is to come back down.
ILLUSTRATIVE PHYSIOLOGICAL PROFILENO SUPPLEMENTAL O₂
SpO₂
HR
RESP
Feature documentary
The film is not a record of the summit. It is the road to deciding whether to go there at all.
The feature documentary connects adventure, science and a personal story. Long-term filming follows physical preparation, hypoxic training, medicine, the psychology of extreme performance, family, team dynamics and the raw reality of the Himalayas.
01Preparation
02Human
03Science
04Expedition
- Formatfeature documentary
- Length70+ minutes
- Focuscinemas, festivals and later VOD distribution
Open trailer on VimeoUwe Gille · CC BY-SA 3.0 / GFDL
Research
THE BODY UNDER WATCH
SCIENCE / HYPOXIA / PERFORMANCE
Without Oxygen is not only a story of an ascent. During preparation and the expedition itself, the project will continuously observe how the human organism responds to extreme altitude and long-term oxygen deprivation. Specialized wearable sensors will record cardiac, respiratory, temperature, movement and sleep data. The collected information will serve the medical team, expert evaluation and the film itself – as an authentic image of what happens to the body at the edge of its capacity.
- cardiac activity
- respiratory response
- body temperature
- movement load
- sleep
- recovery and acclimatisation
PHYSIOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT · DATA TO BE ADDED AFTER THE EXPEDITION
CARDIAC TRACE
A reserved space for later records of the body's cardiac response in hypoxia.
BREATHING RHYTHM
A subtle line for future observation of ventilation without numerical interpretation.
SATURATION IN HYPOXIA
A prepared place for verified expedition data from an extreme-altitude environment.
Team
Four perspectives on one limit.
Without Oxygen is built by people who understand extreme performance, images, expedition medicine and the long-term preparation of the body.
01
Ondřej Novák
project author / extreme athlete
Ondřej connects crisis management with mountains and keeps searching for the line between preparation and the unpredictable. After a complete mountain-bike descent of Mera Peak at 6,476 metres, he is moving toward a project where the athletic performance is only one part of the story.
02
Tomáš Koucký
expedition cinematographer
Tomáš Koucký is a cinematographer, director and editor focused on documentary and outdoor filmmaking. He studied cinematography at the Film Academy of Miroslav Ondříček in Písek. As cinematographer he worked on the feature documentary Magoři na kole, which followed the expedition of Ondřej Novák and Tomáš Zejda to Nepal's Mera Peak. In Without Oxygen, he is responsible for capturing the expedition visually in an extreme high-altitude environment.
03
MUDr. Lenka Horáková, Ph.D., DESAIC
mountain and expedition medicine
Lenka Horáková is a physician in anaesthesiology and intensive medicine, president of the Czech Society of Mountain Medicine and Deputy Head for Science and Research at the Department of Anaesthesiology, Intensive and Emergency Medicine of the Third Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and Bulovka University Hospital. At the Third Faculty of Medicine she guarantees the mountain medicine course. Her professional work focuses mainly on the physiology and pathology of hypoxia and breathing in extreme conditions. In the project, she provides expert insight into acclimatisation, high-altitude hypoxia and expedition health risks.
04
MUDr. František Zámola
sports medicine and performance preparation
František Zámola is a sports physician, director and head physician of the Prague Healthy Longevity Clinic. He focuses on sports medicine, functional diagnostics, lifestyle genetics and individual work with nutrition and supplementation. He is a graduate of Charles University and the Military Medical Academy and has long worked in healthcare for performance and elite athletes. In Without Oxygen, he contributes to medical diagnostics, monitoring the body's response to training load and setting up physical preparation.
Partners
Brands that are not only seen. They help move the project upward.
Partnerships are built on real product use, shared content and a long-term link to the film — from preparation through the expedition to the premiere.
We are looking for partners who want to be part of the journey — not only part of the logo row.
Request partner deckContact
For partners, media and production collaboration.
The project is ready to expand with real expedition data, photography, video and a press kit. Contact is routed to the Perfect Knowledge production team.
- Phone
- +420 728 655 555
- Production
- Perfect Knowledge s.r.o.