MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Documentary recreates Shackleton's saga.

The mythical English explorer Ernest Shackleton sailed once again. But this time in a forty minutes documentary that was launched a few weeks ago in top movie theaters in United States and Europe. The film was directed by George Butler with mostly British and American actors, but there were also a number of Punta Arenas residents among the logistic crew.

Punta Arenas press highlights that Rich Winograd, SpaceCam Marketing Manager, a company specializing is air photography, recalls those spectacular weeks filming "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure" in location in Antarctica flying from Punta Arenas.

Originally the film was to be named "Endurance" in honor of the famous vessel of the intrepid polar explorer.

The film in the new Imax 70 mm format, recreates Captain Shackleton and his 27 men saga when in 1914 they attempted crossing the Antarctic but finished with the "Endurance" trapped and crushed in the polar ice. The filming demanded two full Antarctic expeditions in October-November 1999 and April 2000.

Survival story

The recreation of the saga included filming the majestic Weddell Sea icebergs, floating ice and the trip to Elephant Island where Shackleton's men patiently waited for months to be rescued, feeding on penguins and sea mammals.

Producers contracted two vessels for the filming. One of them was the Russian scientific ship Akademik Shuleykin, where most of the 40 strong team lived, including the support equipment.

The air footage was taken from a 350-B helicopter operating from Punta Arenas based tug "Laurel". The SpaceCam team had a special equipment fixed into the helicopter and renowned cameraman Ron Goodman was responsible for the filming. "Laurel" also transported 178 museum and historic pieces flown in from the United States together with the special survival equipment.

The final product is a marvelous film that includes original pictures and footing from the "Endurance", plus the epic recreation of Shackleton's Weddell Sea crossing and leadership capacity, possibly one of the greatest survival episodes of all times . And, the Punta Arenas press underlines, the happy ending of the historic survival operation involved a Chilean seaman Luis Pardo and the crew of the tender "Yelcho", who sailed from Punta Arenas for the definite rescue of Shackleton's team.