There’s a cou­ple of spe­cial screen­ings com­ing up this week­end to com­mem­o­rate the 50th Anniver­sary, on 17 March 2008, of the return to New Zealand of HMNZS Endeav­our with the mem­bers of the Com­mon­wealth Trans-Antarc­tic Expe­di­tion.

The 1955–58 Com­mon­wealth Trans-Antarc­tic Expe­di­tion (CTAE) was Com­mon­wealth-spon­sored and suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed the first over­land cross­ing of Antarc­ti­ca, via the South Pole.

Fund­ed by the gov­ern­ments of the UK, New Zealand, Aus­tralia and South Africa, as well as pri­vate and cor­po­rate dona­tions under the patron­age of Queen Eliz­a­beth II, the expe­di­tion was head­ed by British explor­er Dr Vivian Fuchs, with the late Sir Edmund Hillary lead­ing a sup­ply sup­port team.

While Sir Ed’s sup­ply par­ty beat the Eng­lish led group to the South Pole (being only the third group to reach the Pole over­land after Amund­sen in 1911 and Scott in 1912), the expe­di­tion arrived at Scott Base on 2 March, 1958, hav­ing crossed 3,473 km of pre­vi­ous­ly unex­plored snow and ice in 99 days.

The pro­gramme, pre­sent­ed in asso­ci­a­tion with Antarc­tic Research Cen­tre (Vic­to­ria Uni­ver­si­ty of Welling­ton), includes footage of the depar­ture and return of the CTAE expe­di­tion, stun­ning film from on the ice, as well as clas­sic film seg­ments cel­e­brat­ing New Zealand’s Antarc­tic con­nec­tion over the last 50 years.

Fri­day 14, Sat­ur­day 15 March at 7pm
Entry by koha
75 mins