Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl became a worldwide sensation by floating across 4300 miles of Pacific Ocean from Peru to Polynesia on a balsawood craft to 'prove' that this was the original way the islands had been populated. The book he wrote sold 50 million copies and the documentary he made along the way won an Oscar in 1951. The only people who weren't convinced then (and now) were the scientific community - 'just because you did it does not prove it was done before'.

What had also not been done before was to make a fictional film of the adventure; until Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg that is. Simultaneously filmed in Norwegian and English, it became Norway's most expensive film ever and their entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2013. Visually stunning, it...'is filmed in a more realistic style than the fanciful 'Life of Pi', but it offers no less a sense of wonder, as evoked in scenes with flying fish, electric eels that light up the nocturnal waters, or simply the rapturously beautiful panoramic view of the tiny craft as a speck on the vast oceanscape' - Donald Liebenson, Roger Ebert.com

We are showing the English language version.