DVD 118 Days in the Captivity of Ice

The documentary film will draw you into as unbelievable a story as the life of polar explorers can offer.

Big nail – that is the Inuit word for North Pole, the axis around which the Earth revolves. This imaginary point has attracted brave polar explorers as a powerful magnet. Crossing the Arctic Ocean from Russia to Canada through the North Pole remained the last, almost impossible dream of Arctic explorers for many years after the North Pole was conquered by humans. Reinhold Mesner called it the last great challenge of this millennium. This film presents an authentic story of Slovak explorer Peter Valusiak and three Russian polar explorers, who tried to make this dream come true, using only their own strength and without any aircraft support. The expedition started from the Severnaya Zemlya, a place well known for an abundance of polar bears and strong drift which were the cause of several dramatic events. The North Pole was reached after 75 days on May 8, 1998. From that moment on, the expedition fought with continuous return drift, large areas of open water and extreme weather fluctuations.

Script, editing, director: Pavol Barabas,
Photography: Ivan Kuzilevsky,
Music: Vitazoslav Kubicka,
Length: 56 minutes,
Year of production: 1998

Film won many festival prizes: Grand Prize - Poprad, Slovak Republic, 1998, Grand Prize – Vancouver, Canada, 1999, Grand Prize – Trento, Italy, 1999, Grand Prize –Teplice nad Metuji, Czech Republic, 1999, Grand Prize – Trojan, Bulgaria, 2000, 1st prize in the Adventure and extreme sport films category – Ostrava, Czech Republic, 2003, Best expedition film – Autrans, France, 1998, Best adventure film – Santander, Spain, 1998, Best film on Mountain Sport – Banff, Canada, 1999, Best adventure film – Graz, Austria, 1999, Best adventure film – Coppenhagen, Denmark, 2000, Extreme Prize – Toulon, France, 1999, Prize of the Planet - Toulon, France, 1999

Prize for Direction – FICTS, Milan, Italy, 1999 and other prizes.

DVD includes:
- film 118 Days in the Captivity of Ice
- film about film making
- map
- film about the film director
- documentary film Team Work about a dogsled race in Donovaly, Slovakia
- film festival prizes
- information concerning the DVD producers
- other Pavol Barabas´s films trailers