MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Emperor penguins win the best documentary Oscar

A film about the trials of Emperor penguins struggling to survive in Antarctica, “March of the Penguins”, won the Oscar for the best documentary last Sunday at the Hollywood Academy Awards.

The naturalistic film about Antarctica's waddling Emperor penguins has attracted an audience of 16 million cinema goers and earned 117 million US dollars worldwide, making it the most successful French film abroad in the past decade.

The penguins' lonely journey to find a mate and then raise a single chick against the odds has touched a common nerve of love and fragility.

The birds' human-like stoicism during their treacherous annual mating ritual transformed the small wildlife documentary, shot in the extreme cold of Antarctica over 13 months and narrated by actor Morgan Freeman, into a nail-biting drama.

"The film touches on a universal emotion" Jacquet says. But what he set out to capture was the penguins' battle to survive rather than human themes of love and loneliness. In combining both, he highlights their extreme fragility.

"They make this incredible journey, and then everything can fall to pieces in an instant."

Jacquet and his four-person crew spent more than a year in Antarctica trekking from the French science center, Dumont d'Urville, to the penguins' mating ground where they filmed only a few hours a day due to the life-threatening cold.

Luc Jacquet and the "Penguins" producers took the stage Sunday bearing stuffed penguins to match their black-and-white tuxedos.

"Looking at all the tuxedos tonight, it's like seeing the movie all over again," said producer Yves Darondeau.

Jacquet dedicated the award to "all the children in the world who saw that movie," and voiced concern about the expiration of the treaty, to expire in 2041, protecting Antarctica.