While emptying her grandparents' house, director Jeanne Lefevre discovers the journal kept by her grandfather during a scientific mission to Adélie Land, French Antarctic Territory, in 1960. Atomic engineer Bruno Parlier had never spoken of this trip to his family. With her archives in hand, Jeanne decides to follow in his footsteps, to Antarctica.
14 September 1943: The legendary submarine Y1 “Katsonis” was sunk north of the island of Skiathos by the German submarine chaser UJ 2101. Through the book of XO Elias Tsoukalas who escaped capture and had to swim for nine hours to reach shore, secret documents, and crew members’ diaries, the documentary unfolds the human stories woven around the submarine. Seventy-five years later, with the support of the Hellenic Navy, we search for the submarine sunk at 253 metres depth and film the wreck for the very first time.
Growing up in poverty as a child, Dylan dreamt of travelling the world on a motorcycle. Many years later he broke the shackles of a normal life and took to the road. After journeying 200,000km across four continents, the road from Panama to Colombia comes to an end, swallowed up by an impenetrable jungle. Dylan has no choice but to take to the sea, building a raft powered by his motorcycle engine in the hope of reaching Colombia's road network 700km away. He must brave strong ocean currents and storm batterings in his journey from Central to South America.—Journeyman Pictures
Documentary about the work of Claude Lorius, who began studying Antarctic ice in 1957, and, in 1965, was the first scientist to be concerned about global warming.
A black-and-white visual meditation of wilderness and the elements. Wildlife filmmaker Richard Sidey returns to the triptych format for a cinematic experience like no other.
On December 26, 2018, American Colin O’Brady completed a 54-day expedition across Antarctica, covering over 930 miles while hauling a 400-pound sled packed with all of his food and survival gear. O’Brady faced an ungodly windchill, the threat of unseen crevasses and utter isolation. In a head to head competition mirroring the race to the South Pole between Amundsen and Scott in 1911, O’Brady flew in the same Twin Otter aircraft with veteran polar explorer Captain Louis Rudd to ski from the Hercules Inlet to the start of the Ross Ice Shelf in a race to the record books. O’Brady finished two and a half days before Rudd, claiming a new world record, “The Impossible First,” to be the first person ever to cross Antarctica alone, with no support and no assistance.
In February 2013 a film crew led by documentary filmmaker David Sington will leave Montevideo in Uruguay for a voyage across the South Atlantic into the stormiest waters on Earth. Their destination will be a rendezvous with the Saga Sea, a high-technology trawler operating in the Antarctic Ocean. It will be a voyage to the latest and possibly last frontier between industrial civilization and the natural world, in search of a mysterious sea creature which for decades has held the promise of transforming human nutrition: krill. Could the exploitation of krill improve diet across the globe, or will it simply lead to the collapse of one of the most important ecosystems on the planet?
The Transantarctic expedition led by the American Will Steger and the Frenchman Dr. Jean-Louis Étienne took place between July 1989 and March 1990. It was the first successful attempt to cross the entire extent of Antarctica without the use of motor power. Six men of various nationalities, including Viktor Boyarksy (Soviet Union), Geoff Somers (Great Britain), Qin Dahe (China) and Keizo Funatsu (Japan), crossed Antarctica from east to west for seven months on dog sleds pulled by 63 sled dogs, covering a total distance of 6,048 kilometers, with temperatures as low as minus 45 degrees Celsius and long-lasting storms. Their aim was to draw global attention to the continent's endangered future and the early signs of climate change. The documentary relives this great human adventure, which took more than three years from the first meeting of the participants to the final success.
This documentary exposes Antarctica's dramatic climate shifts, from melting ice to rising seas, showing how changes at the world's edge threaten Earth's shared future.
The few thousand kilometers that separate Patagonia from the South Pole are a fascinating and hypnotic journey for explorers. Some even speak of an addiction, 'the Antarctic bite'. March of the Penguins (2005) director Luc Jacquet has been experiencing it for 30 years. His new film is a visually-striking adventure, offering us images beyond words, an ultimate tribute to a vanishing continent.
With Byrd at the South Pole (1930) is a documentary film about Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd and his 1st quest to the South Pole beginning at the Little America-Exploration Base. The film's soundtrack consists mostly of music and sound effects, with narration read by Floyd Gibbons. The film won at the 3rd Academy Awards for Best Cinematography.
Humanity is constantly pushing its limits... In the field of space exploration, Mars is now the number one objective. Reaching the Red Planet presents immense challenges: which rockets will be capable of traveling such a distance? Can the body adapt to weightlessness for such a long time? Will the crew, in complete isolation, withstand such an ordeal, both physically and mentally? Around the world, the scientific community is trying to find solutions to send the first human to Mars. This documentary invites us to discover the behind-the-scenes story of the greatest expedition of all time.
Herbert Ponting travelled to Antarctica with Captain Scott’s ill-fated South Pole expedition and filmed the stunning images that make up this extraordinary documentary. (Originally released in 1912 as With Captain Scott in the Antarctic, the material was re-edited and re-issued by Ponting in 1924 as The Great White Silence.)
The Douglas Mawson Antarctic Expedition of 1912 is considered one of the most amazing feats of endurance of all time. Although his two companions perished, Douglas Mawson survived, but how? In a bold historical experiment, scientist and adventurer Tim Jarvis is retracing the gruelling experience, with the same meagre rations, primitive clothing and equipment to uncover what happened to Mawson physically — and mentally — as a man hanging on the precipice of life and death.
The vessel is Infinity, a 120-foot hand-built sailboat, crewed by a band of miscreants. The journey, an 8,000 mile Pacific crossing from New Zealand to Patagonia, with a stop in Antarctica. Unlike all the other boats heading to the Southern Ocean, Infinity is no ice-reinforced super-yacht crewed by professional sailors; rather, Infinity lives in the moment and sails on a whim. What can be found in abundance on board is blood, sweat, enthusiasm, risk tolerance, disdain for authority, and an ample supply of alcohol – all in all a mad voyage of reckless adventure just for the sheer joy of it. Along the way the crew will battle a hurricane of ice in the Ross Sea, assist the radical environmental group Sea Shepherd in their fight with illegal whalers, and tear every sail they have. At the heart of their journey is a quest for awe and a sense of wonder with the raw power of the natural world.
Abysses, la conquête des fonds marins
For almost a century and a half, Her Majesty's Ship Breadalbane lay wrecked and forgotten under the Arctic ice. In the spring of 1983, noted undersea explorer Dr. Joseph MacInnis led a team of twenty men on one of the most difficult, dangerous and unforgettable undersea adventures of the century--to put a diver on board the sunken vessel and recover some artifacts. This film, introduced by H.R.H. Prince Charles, provides a stunning visual account of this historic expedition.
While visiting Japan, Big Bird wanders off from a guided tour bus in Tokyo, and is lost until a Japanese woman helps him get to where he needs to go. The woman, however, is hiding a secret.
In the heart of the Antarctic Peninsula there's a unique British post office staffed by a dedicated team and surrounded by jaw-dropping scenery that includes 3,000 gentoo penguins. Every summer, this particular colony of penguins returns from an intensive spell of deep sea fishing to its breeding grounds alongside the post office, trekking nearly two miles across sea ice and snow to get there when the weather is especially bad. They rush to find a partner, build a nest, lay eggs and protect those eggs from predators, and then finally get down to the task of raising their young. We see their four-month drama unfold against the backdrop of their lives - primarily, the comings and goings of cruise ships, bringing enthusiastic tourists to photograph the penguins and their chicks, and to buy postcards to send to friends and family around the world - from the Penguin Post Office.
This documentary explores the harsh and mysterious environment of Antarctica, focusing on the King George Island research stations. It highlights the scientific discoveries, extreme weather conditions, and the unique challenges faced by researchers living in one of the most isolated places on Earth.