The Blinding Sea is a two-hour-long feature documentary on the life and career of Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen, which I produced and directed on location in Antarctica, on the Southern Ocean, in Alaska, on the Beaufort Sea, in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Quebec, Mexico, Scotland, England, Ireland, Belgium and Norway.
During the research phase, I gave guest lectures about Amundsen and the Inuit at Cambridge University and the Sorbonne. The film itself is based on a phenomenal amount of archival research, interviews and travel in extreme polar conditions by dog team, on skis, by snowmobile, helicopter, icebreaker, three-masted bark and on foot. I shot one of the best scenes while braving a storm on my knees!
I have won 25 awards for this film, at festivals in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, London, Paris, Cannes, Rome, Berlin, Darjeeling and other places.
My editor Guillaume Falardeau and sound designer Julien Bouchard have won other festival awards for their work on this film.
I have also taken the film on tour, meeting up with live audiences in the United States, Canada, Britain, France and Norway.
The most interesting audience I met was surely in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, where I was invited to screen the film before members of the Inuit community who then shared their perspectives on the film with me. These Inuit included Paul Ikuallaq, grandson of Koleok, an Inuit woman who had known Roald Amundsen well enough, in 1904-1905, to propose marriage to him, and Freda Nakoolaq, who portrayed her great-grandmother Koleok in the film.
The Blinding Sea is © George Tombs, 2025
