Sending six blind Tibetan teenagers up Mount Everest seems more like a perverse form of torture than the premise for a documentary. But Lucy Walker’s “Blindsight,” which opens today at IFC Center, makes a strong case for what a determined group of people can accomplish.

In 2001, Erik Weihenmayer became the first blind person to scale the world’s tallest peak. But “Blindsight” is not the story of that hard-won journey; rather, it’s about how his example inspired six untrained Tibetan children to follow his lead.

A German educator named Sabriye Tenberken, blind herself, devised what became the premise of the film. The founder of a school called Braille Without Borders — the first school for the blind in Lhasa — Ms. Tenberken culled blind, disadvantaged Tibetan children, instructed them in English and Chinese, and taught them how to read and write in three different Braille languages. With their school located at the base of Mount Everest, the children were especially moved by Mr. Weihenmayer’s story. When Ms. Tenberken wrote to him about the children at her school, he responded with trained climbers and a film crew. The result is “Blindsight.”

Mount Everest doesn’t represent your average personal challenge, but it’s not as if the children at Braille Without Borders are unaccustomed to obstacles. Many were raised in abject poverty, and in addition to the difficulties of living with their physical burden in a painfully poor country, they have also had to endure the cruelty of their countrymen, many of whom believe that blindness is a result of sins committed in a past life or of demonic possession.

The six teenagers we follow in “Blindsight” — Kyila, Sonam Bhumtso, Tashi Pasang, Gyenshen, Dachung, and Tenzin — have been given a new future by Braille Without Borders, and simply to watch them interact with their families is riveting. Some, like Tashi’s parents, didn’t have the means to provide for their handicapped child. Others, like Kyila’s mother, lost their lives trying to do just that.

Making six poor, blind children hike up Mount Everest could come off as frivolous, but it is amazing to watch these teenagers see the world open up before them. Fueled by the examples of Mr. Weihenmayer and Ms. Tenberken, our protagonists (who are fitted for their journey with oddly optimistic names that translate into such terms as “Lucky,” “Happy,” and “Victory”) begin to earn what had before resided outside their reach — self-confidence.

The variation of disability and function in the group provides a powerful element of the film. It is impressive to contemplate the achievements that Mr. Weihenmayer has managed, but all of the blind participants in this journey are defying expectations. Mr. Weihenmayer is the only blind person to have reached each of the seven tallest peaks in the world. For her part, Ms. Tenberken has traveled the roads of Tibet alone on horseback to recruit students for her school. Tashi, raised on the streets to earn money as a beggar, is missing an eye and appears to have cigarette burns on his back. The common impression in Tibet is that blind people will wither with no means to support themselves. But by the end of the film, Tashi is running his own business.

Unfortunately, Ms. Walker, the English-born director whose 2002 film, “Devil’s Playground,” focused on Amish teenagers in America, gets tangled up in the details of climbing, throwing the audience off the captivating story she has already established. When her focus turns to achieving the summit, she has some trouble explaining how that might not happen. But “Blindsight” remains breathtaking for its exploration of the children’s lives and what attempting the climb has meant to them. Unable to see the vistas that a summit provides, their trip up Mount Everest has less to do with the goal than with the journey.

Mr. Weihenmayer is one of the last participants on the hike to realize this, but it soon becomes obvious. He has predicated his life on a belief in “unrealistic optimism.” Though the premise of “Blindsight” might appear foolishly optimistic to those with the use of all of their senses, for the children in this film, and for those in many of the world’s poor and under-resourced locales, a bit of unrealistic optimism can go a long way.

mkeane@nysun.com