The Blinding Sea is a 120-minute high-definition feature documentary film, which I have produced and directed, chronicling the life and expeditions of Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen in the years 1897-1928. In this award-winning film, I use the camera to explore polar landscapes and seascapes, record oral traditions, reveal human interactions, and evoke states of psychological and physical health. I show just how Amundsen became an agile expedition leader, by learning directly from Canadian Inuit about their polar skills and techniques, and also their management style.
Here is the film trailer, to give you an idea:
The Blinding Sea comes with its own history. This is an extreme eye-witness adventure film, shot on the Southern Ocean, in Antarctica, across the Arctic and on the Beaufort Sea. It is also a work of rigorous scholarship highlighting the human condition and the painstaking acquisition of experiential knowledge in the polar environment.
I completed a first version in 2020, which I took on tour across North America and Europe, winning 25 awards in festivals around the world.
Then … something unexpected happened! I took the film on tour to Nunavut in November 2023, and showed it there to Inuit audiences.
I learned so much from these encounters that I decided to take back The Blinding Sea and completely rework it. So, this is an interactive film, which honours, adjusts to, and integrates Indigenous knowledge, with the willing participation of Inuit themselves. I completed the new version of the film in March 2025.
The Blinding Sea follows Amundsen and a number of his collaborators and rivals such as Adrien de Gerlache, Frederick Cook, Joseph-Elzéar Bernier, Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton and Teddy Evans. It also shows Inuit as explorers in their own right. They had been exploring the polar regions for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, and have invaluable knowledge about the polar regions to this day.
The film introduces viewers to people directly connected to the story: Anne-Christine and Johan Amundsen, Bernard de Gerlache, Falcon Scott, Alexandra Shackleton, Julian Evans, Bob Konana, Paul Ikuallaq, George Konana, Freda Nakoolaq, Gloria Corbould (Amundsen’s Siberian Chukchi grand-daughter) and others. The film thereby draws on oral traditions as told nowadays in the families of these explorers as well as in the families of descendants of the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic and the Chukchi whom Amundsen knew best in his day.
I shot this film in Antarctica, on the high seas, in the Arctic from Alaska to the Yukon and Nunavut, in Quebec, Mexico, Norway, Ireland, Scotland, England, and Belgium. I also undertook research in archives from New Zealand and Australia to Canada and the United States, and from Ireland to the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Norway and Russia. In The Blinding Sea, I avoid the kind of heroic glorification (mythologizing) and vilification (demythologizing) so typical of conventional explorer biographies.
The Blinding Sea is based on rigorous evidence-based research, and offers completely new insights into the way Roald Amundsen became an agile leader, by unlearning what he thought he knew, casting aside speculative European theories, and then drawing on the practical knowledge of Canadian Inuit. In fact Inuit coached him on polar skills and techniques, and also shared with him, over a two-year period, their unique management style. Amundsen’s relationship with Inuit was based on mutual recognition, respect and the sharing of knowledge, as evidenced by his relationship with Koleok and her family in 1904-1905.
In this film, I highlight the role of women as vectors of knowledge, and also the role of health and nutrition in polar exploration.
About the filmmaker
I am a Quebec-based artist-historian and award-winning author and filmmaker, working interchangeably in English and French. As a journalist and former Michener Fellow, I reported from six continents for newspapers, radio and television, then served as executive director of an international medical association, then as university professor. I hold a PhD in History from McGill University and completed a postgraduate year in Medical Sciences at Oxford University. I also spent years acquiring experience at the “University of the Wilderness,” producing radio documentaries in the Arctic, Patagonia and the Sahara.
The Blinding Sea has been a great adventure to make! I am streaming this film, and giving accompanying workshops and conferences about how Amundsen unlearned what he thought he knew, then learned polar skills and techniques from the Canadian Inuit, as well as their art of agile management.
Main credits and available rights:
Producer, director, cinematographer, researcher, writer, narrator and musical director: George Tombs
Editor: Guillame Falardeau.
© Evidentia Films Inc. 2025
Distribution:
Distributor: George Tombs, who holds 100% of the rights to this film, i.e. educational/non-theatrical rights, broadcasting and streaming rights.
Technical specs:
The film is available for streaming, and in the following versions for live screenings: Apple Prores 422 (HQ) and H.264. This 1080p film is in colour, 16×9, 29.97 fps. English closed captions/French subtitles available. The sound has been mastered in stereo.
Chapters with timecodes and chapter lengths:
Chapter 1: Polar Quest 0:00:00-0:14:01 (14m01)
Chapter 2: Struggle for Survival 0:14:04-0:30:15 (16m11)
Chapter 3: First Contact 0:30:17-0:43:58 (13m41)
Chapter 4: Brave New World 0:44:01-0:55:07 (11m06)
Chapter 5: Time to Move On 0:55:10-1:03:16 (8m06)
Chapter 6: Race to the South Pole 1:03:19-1:25:43 (22m24)
Chapter 7: The Wanderer 1:25:47-1:37:51 (12m04)
Chapter 8: Disappearing 1:37:58-1:57:49 (19m09)
Credits: 1:57-51-2:00:26 (2m35)
Log line: Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen hungered for desert places, and was driven by a passion for both Indigenous and scientific knowledge.