South & the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration on Film (DVD +Blu-ray)
Director: Frank Hurley

On 5 January 1922 the heroic age of Antarctic exploration drew to a symbolic close with the death of Anglo-Irish explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Marking this centenary, this collection of films tells a connected story about human endurance and our relationship with the natural world. The birth of film coincided with explorations heyday as a competitive sport, a source of national pride and beacon of scientific discovery. The work of pioneer filmmakers in the remotest corners of our planet has fuelled a century of genre-spanning cinema and furthered our understanding of the ravages of climate change.

The Films

• Antarctic Expedition: Sir George Newnes’ Farewell to Officers and Crew (1998, 1 min)
• Departure of Shackleton’s British Antarctic Expedition from Lyttelton, New Zealand, 1908 (1908, 8 mins)
• Nihon nankyoku tanken (1912, 19 mins)
• Fram’s South Polar Expedition (22 mins)
• Australasian Antarctic Expedition Films aka The Home of the Blizzard (c1916, 68 mins)
• Paths Animated Gazette No. 140 (extract, 1911, 45 secs)
• South Sir Ernest Shackletons Glorious Epic of the Antarctic (Frank Hurley, 1919, 81 mins)
• Topical Budget – Dogs for the Antarctic (extract, 1914, 1 min)>/li>
• Dogs for the Antarctic – Sir Ernest Shackleton’s dogs in quarantine at Beddington (extract, 1914, 1 min)
• Australasion Gazette – Captain Davis returns to Sydney… (extract, 1917, 30 secs)
• The Late Sir Ernest Shackleton Bathing Query (extract, 1922, 2 mins)
• El Homenaje Del Uruguay A Los Restos De Sir Ernest Shackleton (1922, 11 mins)
  • Shackleton’s Funeral (extract, 1922, 5 mins)
  • Shackleton South Georgia Birds (1920, 13 mins)

  
  Special Features
  South audio commentary by Luke McKernan (2002) Neil Brand on Scoring South (2022): the composer talks about his approach to the new score Neil Brands 2002 score for South Map of Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition with commentary by Kelly Tyler-Lewis (2002, 2 mins) Ross Sea Party (1917, 9 mins): footage was shot by Aubrey Howard Ninnis, the Auroras purser, and Alexander Stevens Chief Scientist presented with Kelly Tyler-Lewis 2002 narration My South Polar Expedition (1910, 4 mins, audio): Shackleton’s voice recorded on an Edison Amberol wax cylinder a week after returning to New Zealand Shackleton Speaks (1910, 1 min, audio): another recording of Shackleton naming his crew