‘The stakes are so different’: Endurance filmmaker on finding Ernest Shackleton’s iconic lost ship in a new documentary on Disney Plus

'One of the great survival stories'

Features By Amelia Schwanke published 1 November 2024

During the pandemic, when we were all stuck indoors distracting ourselves with Wordle and baking endless sourdough loaves, a new discovery was made that took the whole world by storm: Sir Ernest Shackleton's three-masted sailing ship 'Endurance' was finally found where it sank in 1915 underneath the ice of Antarctica.

Nicknamed 'the Titanic of polar exploration vessels', the wreckage caught the attention of a lot of people, including the adventure filmmaking duo Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin from behind some of the best Disney Plus movies like Free Solo, Meru, and The Rescue, who immediately set out to start capturing the epic discovery.

With the help of Natalie Hewit, who was onboard the Endurance 22 Expedition to document the locating of the wreckage of the HMS Endurance in March 2022, the duo have made a new film called Endurance with National Geographic that tells the story of both the historical and modern-day expeditions.

ENDURANCE | Official Trailer | National Geographic Documentary Films - YouTube

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The new National Geographic documentary mixes restored archival clips with present-day footage filmed from aboard the 2022 expedition as well as interviews with the likes of the present-day expedition leader Dr John Sears and reenactments of Shackleton and his crew to bring all the elements of the historical piece together.

Like all their previous films that cover daring feats, whether it's climbing without ropes up a mountain or rescuing 12 boys and their soccer coach from being trapped inside a flooded cave, Vasarhelyi and Chin seem to be endlessly fascinated with the human condition of survival. "Having the audacity to have these crazy dreams and then having the chutzpah, the courage, the ingenuity to see it through," is what connects each of their stories.

It's the running theme throughout their projects and The Endurance is no different. "I think it fits in [to our filmography] well," Vasarhelyi tells TechRadar on reflection. "It's different in terms of the craft that was required, and that's kind of the fun part about being a filmmaker: you get to try different things."

What is the story of The Endurance about?

For those unfamiliar with Shackleton, he was an Irish adventurer who made three expeditions to the southern continent during what's known as the 'Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration', the last of which was the titular 'Endurance' journey that set out to make the first land crossing of Antarctica.

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