Film phase:Completed
SYNOPSIS
Filmmaker and author Holly Morris (Exposure, The Babushkas of Chernobyl, Globe Trekker, Adventure Divas) has spent her career telling the stories of women who chase their potential in the crucible of the natural world. So when she learned that polar explorer Felicity Aston was recruiting for the “Women’s Euro-Arabian North Pole Expedition,” she knew she had to make a film about it.
Morris and her all-woman film crew undertook an ambitious polar production: no snowmobiles, no dogs….no craft services. Nowhere to hide from the -40 temperatures or polar bears, and no way to avoid the open leads of water in the semi-frozen Arctic Ocean over which they laboriously pulled sledges, leaden with hundreds of pounds of camera equipment.
Narrated by director Morris, this behind-the-scenes short film (companion to the feature film Exposure, release 2021) captures the gravitas and debacle of an epic filmmaking undertaking, as well as the indomitable spirit of the expedition team itself—novice explorers from who trained for 2 years to become the last over-ice expedition to reach the fast-melting North Pole.
Overexposed: Filming An Arctic Odyssey was produced as part of Docs by the Dozen, in partnership with LUNAFEST®. Since 2001, LUNAFEST® has been flipping the script, creating opportunities for women in film. Watch the 2021 season here.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
For two decades Holly Morris has told pro-woman stories on the global stage. She’s an internationally-known filmmaker, author, and presenter (Adventure Divas, Globe Trekker). Her new feature documentary, Exposure, about novice explorers from the Arab World and the West who attempt to reach the North Pole, will be released in 2021. Her acclaimed The Babushkas of Chernobyl, about a defiant community of women who live inside Ukraine’s radioactive “Exclusion Zone,” premiered at LA Film Festival and won the Jury Award for Directing—the first of more than two dozen awards on the film circuit—before broadcasting around the world.