Sneak peak: Encounters At The End Of The World

Images from the new film on Antarctica from director Werner Herzog Encounters At The End Of The World
  
  


Encounters: Encounters At The End Of The World Film 2007
Director Werner Herzog filming Encounters at the End of the World on location in Antarctica with cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger. In the Oscar-nominated documentary, Herzog journeys to Antarctica's McMurdo Station to find out what it is that drives its 1,000 inhabitants to want to live and work in this remotest of glacial landscapes Photograph: ThinkFilm/Everett/Rex Features
Encounters: Encounters At The End Of The World Film 2007
Werner Herzog on Mount Erebus. The set of Herzog's latest movie was one of the most inhospitable locations he has worked on. Previously, he has scaled volcanoes, suffered calamities in jungles on three continents and filmed in war zones; even so, he says, there was something elementally terrifying about the reality of a working day in Antarctica Photograph: ThinkFilm/Everett/Rex Features
Encounters: Encounters At The End Of The World Film 2007
Herzog's Encounters is a portrait of a harsh environment and the people who live there - research scientists, philosophers and vulcanologists Photograph: Revolver entertainment
Encounters: Encounters At The End Of The World Film 2007
Herzog was invited to film on the southern icecap by the US agency the National Science Foundation, which offers a limited number of grants to artists. He proposed using a two-man crew - a cinematographer, plus himself as soundman - which meant he saw off a rival proposal from Titanic director James Cameron, who wanted to take a crew of 36 Photograph: ThinkFilm/Everett/Rex Features
Encounters: Encounters At The End Of The World Film 2007
There are the expert divers who drill 30ft vertical holes through the icecap to access its frigid, sci-fi underside, and then dive below to film. "These people only seem odd because when you look at the media and magazines, there is this kind of uniformity of people. Down there, you have characters who do not fit into magazines" Photograph: ThinkFilm/Everett/Rex Features
Encounters: Encounters At The End Of The World Film 2007
The visit was inspired by Herzog's 2005 film The Wild Blue Yonder, in which he combined pre-shot or found footage (some of it taken from a 1989 Nasa space mission), with underwater photography by his friend and musical collaborator, Henry Kaiser. (Kaiser also shot some of the deep sea footage for Encounters) Photograph: ThinkFilm/Everett/Rex Features
Encounters: Encounters At The End Of The World Film 2007
Herzog had hoped to shoot underwater himself, but it was deemed too dangerous Photograph: ThinkFilm/Everett/Rex Features
Encounters: Encounters At The End Of The World Film 2007
It takes a film-maker truly dedicated to extremes to travel to Antarctica, but Herzog's films have never been for the faint hearted Photograph: Revolver entertainment
Encounters: Encounters At The End Of The World Film 2007
Herzog assures us that Encounters At The End of the World "will not be a film about fluffy penguins". The challenging subject matter (including a penguin death march, seal bagging, and a rooftop concert from a cell biologist) should come as no surprise to those familiar with his 2005 documentary Grizzly Man Photograph: Public Domain
 

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