“Endurance” Discovery Premiere at London Film Festival
Saturday, October 12, 2024 – 09:44 UTC
This Saturday, October 12, a documentary film about the discovery of the ship “Endurance” by the great Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton will be presented at the London Film Festival.
The 2022 expedition that made the discovery at the bottom of the Antarctic continent at almost 3,000 meters deep was supported by the Falkland Islands Heritage Fund and was made up of a team of experts including Mensun Bound, a renowned marine archaeologist born and raised in the Falklands, and who for decades had the obsession of achieving this event.
Using remote-controlled submersibles (a kind of underwater drones) it was possible to locate the remains of the “Endurance” at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, putting an end to a mystery of more than a century.
The “Endurance” was last seen in 1915 when explorer Shackleton and his crew of 27 men watched helplessly and bewildered as the ship trapped in the Antarctic ice was devoured by the frozen sea. Shackleton and his expedition members had the goal of reaching the South Pole starting from the eastern Antarctic continent, a largely unexplored area.
They waited several months for the southern spring but by then the trapped ship was badly damaged by ice and in November 1915 it disappeared forever until 2022. Shackelton then embarked along with five other crew members on an epic journey that remained in the best annals of history. Antarctic exploration as an example of conviction, determination and leadership to rescue the remaining crew members. After 800 miles in a precarious boat, they were able to reach the island of South Georgia from where work began for the final rescue of the entire crew in 1917.
The 35-day operation in 2022 that allowed the “Endurance” to be located and filmed at that depth is part of the film alternating with original filmed sections of the 1914 expedition.
Falklands Heritage Trust Secretary Donald Lamont said the film “is very important because everyone will be able to see what happened during the search for one of the most famous and epic shipwrecks in history. Sir Ernest Shackleton’s connection with the Falklands was forever linked when he gave his first public account of what happened to his men and his ship…in the Community Hall of the Islands’ capital, Stanley on 31 May 1916. 118 years after that monumental exhibition, we can and must remember the phenomenal achievement achieved by his leadership.”
The tape will also be available in all schools around the world thanks to the partnership with the Reach the World organization, Lamont added. “The lessons to be learned from Sir Ernest’s courage and determination in 1914 remain intact to this day”
