Capturing the Crux

Professional climber, Bronwyn Hodgins’ latest film, 'La Rubia,' documents the gripping journey of her hardest climb yet. In an interview with filmmaker Julia Cassou, we discover the journey behind the camera...

Photo Credit: Julia Cassou

Earlier this summer, Mountains on Stage premiered its Summer Edition of four films for 2025. Bronwyn Hodgins’ latest film, 'La Rubia' was the first of the four and her hardest climb yet. Bronywn is a Canadian big wall climber and the first Canadian woman to free climb El Capitan in Yosemite. Her most recent film prior to 'La Rubia' was 'Sea to Summit' in 2022, when she, her husband Jacob Cook and a few others sea-kayaked 400km of coastline in Greenland to reach new big sea cliff routes. The 65 day expedition and El Cap sized ascent in Greenland certainly took a long time to recover from, and 'La Rubia' was Bronwyn's next biggest challenge. 

‘I started working on La Rubia eight months after the expedition in Greenland and felt way stronger and in a better place both mentally and physically’, Bronwyn told Mountains on Stage. La Rubia is a 55-meter high sport climbing route in Villanueva Del Rosario, Spain. The whole thing is mostly an overhang that comes out of a cave and is graded 8c+ which is a whole grade higher than El Cap for perspective. After a promising first attempt Bronwyn spent two months working on and filming 'La Rubia' with Julia Cassou, her filmmaker for this particular movie. 

Julia explains,

‘We co-directed this movie together so it was a question of what is the story you want to tell, which comes from Bronwyn, and for me, it was more about how we tell this message’.

Julia’s role was all about how she can make the audience feel Bronwyn's emotions during such an intense journey, and it's safe to say she succeeded. From post production to the final screening, when Bronwyn just missed the crux the first time the whole auditorium gasped, it felt like we were right there on the wall with her. 

In terms of getting the camera shots, Julia explains, ‘We set up a fixed line that we ascended like a Rope Access system, so I would jug up the ropes, as unfortunately I don't climb 8c+’. However the main problem that La Rubia posed, unlike big wall faces, was the extreme overhang of the route which meant Julia had to rethink her usual filming tactics. ‘I had to set up two different ropes instead, one rope to shoot from below and one to shoot from above’. She continues to explain how Bronwyn would spend a few minutes on a specific kneebar rest which gave Julia the opportunity to swap lines, but that involved jugging up 40 meters of rope. ‘I was constantly sprinting between the two lines’. While also using a drone for some shots, Julia points out, ‘It's changing the game in movie making for climbers but it will never replace a cameraman in situ. You will never get the same images’.

Bronwyn told Mountains on Stage, ‘I probably felt more pressure than normal because of the camera but it was really good to have Julia to talk to and encourage me while climbing’. Julia had a similar experience saying, ‘I love being inspired by the climber I'm working with and here seeing Bronwyn falling was so difficult because I could almost reach her hand’. That's one thing the audience never gets to see when watching these types of films, they forget how close the camera is to the climber to get such impressive shots. As the pair became friends during the filming of ‘La Rubia’ Julia talks about the fine line between filming vulnerable moments and looking out for a friend.

‘If Bronwyn falls down, she’s going to be crushed and for me to be filming her in these tough moments, it will always be a bit invasive, but it's a key image to get if she's crying - I have to film it and that's very hard’. 

‘La Rubia’ was a project created by a fully female team which Julia highlights, ‘There’s a lot more visibility of women in climbing but much less on the movie making side of things, especially when it comes to expeditions’. Whilst Bronwyn talks about the mental battles faced throughout her climbing career, ‘In the past, I have had feelings of being an imposter as a professional climber as I started climbing pretty late without having any background training for that. I compared myself to other people. So succeeding La Rubia brought me a lot of confidence’. In the summer, Bronwyn organised a women's climbing festival in Squamish, called ‘Rock and Rise’ which was all about encouraging diversity and expanding the local climbing community. So for ‘La Rubia’ to be a solely female film team was really special for both Bronwyn and Julia. 

Julia talks about the long journey they had to get to the premier in Paris, ‘It was a very emotional moment because I’m so proud of Bronwyn and for her decision to extend the project despite the visa pressures and difficult weather’. In all, ‘La Rubia’ is a must watch climbing film, so once it’s released online we would highly recommend giving it a watch. Julia also mentioned that she and Bronwyn are planning another bigger expedition together so keep an eye out for that too!