Mountains Internal
For ten years, no one could tell her what was wrong. Now a former big-mountain skier battles the silence of medicine — and her own fading hope — to reclaim her freedom on the mountain.
A big-mountain skier in southern Utah, she was most herself in motion. Then, in her early twenties, her legs began to fail her due to a mysterious illness — and years of searching for a cause ended in silence, with no way back to the sport that defined her.
Mountains Internal follows Nerissa's fight to reclaim her body and her life: her decision to stop waiting for the medical system to save her and advocate for her own answers, and the long, nonlinear road back toward the freedom she once felt on the mountain. Along the way, she wrestles with the depression she's long carried and the question of who she becomes if she heals.
Filmed over multiple years across Utah and Colorado, it's an intimate, honest portrait of resilience, self-advocacy, and the will to keep going — a story for anyone who has ever had to fight to be believed.
On the mountain, Nerissa Cannon was free.
Audience Choice Award
2024 PitchDox, Heartland International Film Festival
Where We Are Now
Mountains Internal is in post-production. After years of self-funded filming, we’re now working to bring the film across the finish line — and we need your help to do it.