The four documentaries we are screening chart the course of expedition filmmaking over the past 100 years. They range from a color-tinted silent movie to a high definition video.
In the early films, pioneering camera techniques are much in evidence. In the modern documentaries, the traditional style of reserved storytelling gives way to intensely personal revelations to the camera by individual expedition members.
The films are being presented as two double features on the morning and afternoon of October 1st alongside Q & A sessions with an Everest summiteer and a polar explorer.
The Conquest of Everest
The Oscar-nominated film of the first ascent of Everest
In 1953 the United Kingdom was struggling to recover economically from the end of World War Two, King George VI had died, and the sun was setting on the British Empire.
At the same time, a British-led expedition was attempting to reach the summit of Everest as the country prepared to celebrate the imminent coronation of its new Queen.
Every climber on the team knew it was Britain and her Commonwealth’s last chance to make the first ascent of the world‘s highest mountain: after a slew of British failures on Everest in the 1920s and 1930s, the alpine nations of France and Switzerland stood ready to mount their summit bids.
This Oscar-nominated and BAFTA-winning documentary shows a moment in history at the dawn of the Elizabethan era. Filmmaker Tom Stobart and high altitude cameraman George Lowe captured the trials and tribulations of John Hunt’s team as the expedition attempted to overcome Everest’s ramparts before the onset of the monsoon.
The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther described the scene when Hunt learned of Hillary and Tenzing’s success as “one of the grandest, most throat-choking moments this reviewer has ever witnessed on a screen.”
Over half a century since its release, The Conquest of Everest is regarded as a seminal work in the history of documentary expedition filmmaking. It is a joy to behold on the big screen.
Run time: 80 minutes.
The Fatal Game
An Everest guide must choose between remaining with his exhausted client or saving himself.
During the 1990s, Everest was transformed from a savage arena in which elite mountaineers tested their skill on technically difficult routes to a destination for people looking for the ultimate high. Many adventurers employed the services of western guides to help them achieve their summit ambitions.
By 1994, two years before the infamous Into Thin Air disaster that claimed 11 lives, Australian mountaineer Mike Rheinberger had made seven unsuccessful attempts to reach the summit of Everest. For his eighth expedition, Rheinberger employed the services of a commercial Everest expedition organiser to help him achieve his ambition.
The Fatal Game tells the story of the expedition that Rheinberger joined and the harrowing decisions that his mountain guide had to make as they approached the summit of Everest. This film vividly illustrates the physical suffering that climbers put themselves through on high altitude expeditions, and reveals the psychological trauma that mountaineers wrestle with in the wake of a tragedy.
Run time: 50 minutes.
South
Sir Ernest Shackleton’s attempt to cross Antarctica at the outbreak of the First World War.
By 1914 the South Pole had been reached by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen and the Englishman Robert Falcon Scott. Only one major Antarctic journey remained: a crossing of the continent. On the eve of the First World War, and with the blessing of the British Admiralty, the celebrated polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton returned to Antarctica aboard his ship, Endurance, to attempt this last great polar ‘first’.
Whilst Europe descended into chaos, Shackleton and his men became embroiled in the greatest story of survival in the history of exploration. For the next 16 months, they lived on the ocean. An entire polar winter was spent aboard Endurance after the vessel was beset in pack ice. Then, when the ship was crushed by the forces of nature the party made their home on a succession of ice floes. Finally, they took to three open rowing boats and sailed to Elephant Island.
However, reaching land was only a temporary victory. The isle was located away from shipping lanes and the team had no method of communication with the outside world. Shackleton’s bid for survival had only just begun.
Remarkably, one member of Shackleton’s party, an Australian cameraman named Frank Hurley, captured on celluloid some of the cataclysmic events that befall the team. The resulting film, South, was released in 1920.
Recently, South was sensitively restored to its former glory by the British Film Institute. This remarkable film shows us that whilst many aspects of documentary filmmaking have changed in the past 90 years, key elements – such as dramatic footage and a good story told well – have not.
Run time: 80 minutes.
Call of the White
Eight women trek to the South Pole on Felicity Aston’s Commonwealth Women’s Antarctic Expedition.
In 2009, almost a century after the heroic age of exploration had drawn to a close, polar explorer Felicity Aston had a bold idea: to lead an expedition of women with no prior experience of the polar regions on a trek to the South Pole.
Harnessing the power of the Internet, Felicity put out a call to women living in the nations of Brunei, Cyprus, Ghana, India, Jamaica, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom to join her Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition. 800 women applied to join the team. Felicity flew around the world to interview a shortlist of candidates, and invited two women from each country to attend a selection course.
Call of the White begins on that selection course in Arctic Norway, where the candidates meet each other for the first time in temperatures of minus -30ºC. For some of the applicants it is the first time they have seen snow. As the honeymoon period following the joy of being accepted onto the selection course fades, the women take their first faltering steps in a snowbound landscape as the enormity of the challenge that lies ahead of them begins to sink in. At the end of the selection course, Felicity must choose which women to take to the South Pole. And which women to send home.
Eight months later, the team fly to Antarctica. But a tent-destroying blizzard and a debilitating frostbite injury threaten to end their historic 500-mile trek to the South Pole even before they begin.
Portraying the attractions and challenges of 21st century polar exploration, Call of the White epitomises two ingredients common to every expedition: friendship and determination.
Run time: 45 minutes.