ENCOUNTERS AT THE
END OF THE WORLD

Year: 2007
USA: THINKFilm
UK DVD: Revolver Entertainment
Cast: Werner Herzog (narrator), Scott Rowland, Stefan Pashov, Ryan A Evans, Kevin Emery, Olav T Oftedal, David R Pacheco, Jr, Samuel S Bowser, Jan Pawlowski, William Jirsa, Karen Joyce, Libor Zicha, Ashrita Furman, Clive Oppenheimer, Peter Gorha
Director: Werner Herzog
Country: USA
USA & UK: 99 mins
UK Certificate: U contains mild sex references
USA Release Date: 11 June 2008 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 24 April 2009 (Limited Release)
UK DVD Release Date: 31 August 2009

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Synopsis

"Off the map, things get strange."

Hidden away at the southern end of the world one thousand men and women live together under unbelievably close quarters in the remote continent and wilderness of Antarctica, risking their lives and sanity in search of cutting-edge science.

Now, for the first time, an outsider has been admitted. In his first documentary since GRIZZLY MAN, Werner Herzog, accompanied only by his cameraman, travelled to Antarctica, with rare access to the raw beauty and raw humanity of the ultimate Down Under.

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, Herzog's latest meditation on nature, explores this land of fire, ice and solitude.

A dramatic and awe-inspiring account of life on Antarctica, this polar adventure captures some of the world's most breath-taking scenery and previously unseen wildlife, using techniques that go beyond anything yet explored by any other nature team.

Narrated by Herzog himself, his passion and desire to discover the unexplored and share it with the rest of the world is obvious. Over the course of his journey, Herzog looks at the exceptional human and rare animal life who choose to form a community as far away from civilization as one can get. A truly uplifting film, ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD will leave viewers captivated by life in this previously unobserved part of our planet.

"I wanted to go to Antarctica after seeing underwater pictures of an otherworldly environment, that were taken by a friend of mine, an expert diver, who captured a frozen world unlike anything I had ever seen before. [The people that live there] 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."

Director: Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog was born in Munich in 1942, growing up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and never saw any films, television, or telephones as a child. He made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than forty films, published more than a dozen books of prose, and directed as many operas. His next feature film Bad Lieutenant starring Nicholas Cage is due to be released next year.