A four-part drama adaptation about the life of polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Based on Shackleton’s own journals. In 1914 Ernest Shackleton chooses to lead a team on their famous journey aboard the Endurance. When the ship is trapped and crushed by pack-ice, Shackleton and five of his men embark on a desperate 800-mile journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia.
The Last Place on Earth is a 1985 Central Television seven part serial, written by Trevor Griffiths based on the book Scott and Amundsen by Roland Huntford. The book is an exploration of the expeditions of Captain Robert F. Scott and his Norwegian rival in polar exploration, Roald Amundsen in their attempts to reach the South Pole.
The series ran for seven episodes and starred a wide range of UK and Norwegian character actors as well as featuring some famous names, such as Max von Sydow, Richard Wilson, Sylvester McCoy and Pat Roach. It also featured performances early in their careers by Bill Nighy and Hugh Grant.
Subsequently Huntford's book was republished under the same name. The book put forth the point of view that Amundsen's success in reaching the South Pole was abetted by much superior planning, whereas errors by Scott ultimately resulted in the death of him and his companions.
"Les Coulisses De L'Exploit" was a French television program of sports information created by Jacques Goddet and Raymond Marcillac, and broadcast on RTF Television then on the first channel of the ORTF from December 13, 1961 to August 16, 1972. The principle of this program is to report on sports news but also to meet men and women performing exceptional feats. According to Raymond Marcillac: "Competitive sport is not our only field of action. It never has been. We want to discover beings whose life is enriching, exhilarating; men who have accomplished acts that can be offered to our admiration without reluctance."
In 1989, the German polar explorer Arved Fuchs and the South Tyrolean mountaineer Reinhold Messner set out together to reach the South Pole on skis without sled dogs or motor technology and then cross the entire Antarctic. There are problems right from the start because the onward transport to the starting point by plane cannot be carried out on time. Finally, the adventurers set off from Patriot Hills Base Camp on the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf to the Pole. The completely different character traits of the two men quickly emerge. Messner is impetuous and pushes for speed. The calm Fuchs divides his strength and consistently follows his pace during all planned breaks. On New Year's Eve 1989, the two men are warmly welcomed by the crew of the US Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. But the much larger and more dangerous part of their adventurous continental crossing still lies ahead of them. The 3-part documentary shows one of the last great adventures of modern times in impressive pictures.
Les Carnets de l'Aventure is a cult French television program of adventure and extreme sports documentaries broadcast on Saturday afternoons on Antenne 2 (France 2) between 1980 and 1989. At the beginning of the 80s, in full transformation of mountain activities into high level sports, Les Carnets de L'Aventure revealed from to the country that invented alpinism to the whole world the "French-Touch" of these talents of the new approach to the mountains and its new disciplines. Patrick Edlinger and solo free climbing with the film La Vie au Bout des Doigts, directed by Jean-Paul Janssen in 1982. But also his brother in arms Patrick Berhault, Christophe Profit in the solo ascent of Les Drus, the trilogies of Jean-Marc Boivin in hang-gliding, the Himalayan expoits of Marc Batard but also those of Patrick Gabarrou, opener of routes in the Alps and elsewhere, Patrick Vallencant and his extreme skiing, Paul-Émile Victor and many others...
Take a journey to Antarctica to experience the world’s most extreme wilderness, to see the massive undertaking it is to support human life there, and to chronicle the world-changing science being done. Embed with missions on the ice, underneath it, and atop some of its peaks, as scientists and survival experts join forces to fight brutal conditions to help change the world.