Werner Herzog

USA | 2008 | 99mins | 35mm | Colour

There is a hidden society at the end of the world. One thousand men and women live together in unbelievably close quarters in 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’

The result is Encounters at the End of the World, Herzog’s latest meditation on nature, which beautifully explores this land of fire, ice and corrosive solitude. This hidden society is an attraction for the most advanced scientific minds yet the loneliest of hearts. The nature of Antarctica ensures that it provides its own form of natural selection where professional dreamers are forced to either acclimatise themselves or admit defeat and return home.

Throughout the course of Herzog’s own narration, he maintains that he made the documentary to satisfy his own questions about nature, and many discussions are raised concerning technology, the natural world and humanity.