Pavol Barabáš's new documentary, Tepuy, takes viewers inside Chimanta mountain.
photo: Marek Audy
THE LATEST film by famed Slovak documentary filmmaker Pavol Barabáš proves there's still plenty left on Earth to discover.
In Tepuy, which premiered on September 13, Barabáš takes viewers to Chimanta, a table-top mountain in Venezuela. The journey's to its peak, as well as to a huge cave that's literary inside it.
In 2005, Barabáš took part in an expedition that went to Chimanta to explore the cave of Charles Brewer, considered to be the biggest quartzite cave in the world. The table-top mountains, called tepuis in the language of the native people, are known for their population of distinctive flora and fauna, which have been allowed to grow undisturbed for millions of years.
The team included 14 Venezuelans and Slovak and Czech spelunkers Braňo Šmída, Erik Kapucian, Marcel Griflík, Marián Majerčák, Zdenko Hochmuth, Ján Pavlík, Marek Audy and Richard Bouda.
At the end of the film, the expedition offers a theory for how the cave was formed that's straight out of a science-fiction book. But after seeing the cave's chalky opal formations, which scientists believe were formed by bacteria building up over time, any explanation seems possible.
Tepuy is yet another example of Barabáš bringing to life the mysteries of a beautiful, exotic, and isolated world.
By Jana Liptáková
