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Encounters at the End of the World

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD follows Werner Herzog as he travels to Antarctica, looking to capture its natural beauty and investigate the characters there who, much like their surroundings, cannot be found anywhere else on earth.

Director: Werner Herzog
Year: 2007
Time: 99min

 Encounters at the End of the World
(2007) on IMDb

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Ways to Influence

Share this film. Introduce this beautiful and deeply thought-provoking film-poem to others.

Follow and support filmmaker Werner Herzog’s and the Werner Herzog Foundation. You can also follow him on Twitter

Stay informed about the earth’s ice poles – how human activity is changing them, and how humans might need to change in response. Be open to these changes when possible.

Consider the characters in this film, the “professional dreamers” who had deeper, more authentic personalities hiding beneath their day-job personalities. In your own life, try getting to know these deeper aspects of people that our society doesn’t often validate. Try expressing these aspects of yourself too.

Take the effort to learn about a dying language, a dying culture or tradition, or at least to embrace the last bearers of culture. In our lifetime, 90% of languages will be extinct and will have “a catastrophic impact to our ecosystem”. 

Related Articles and Resources

A letter from Roger Ebert to Werner Herzog:

In Praise of Rapturous Truth

A must-read for all Herzog fans.

Connecting Art and Science

An NPR interview with novelist Cormac McCarthy, director Werner Herzog, and physicist Lawrence Krauss proving that art and science don’t have to exist in separate silos. Great thinkers can be inspired by both.

Ecstasy On Ice – Interview

International Documentary Association (IDA) interviewed Werner Herzog about spending time in Antarctica what they found there.

Read the interview.

UNDER THE ICE: Research Diving in Antarctica

Henry Kaiser is a diver, filmmaker, and musician who has spent the last 10 years aiding scientists on research dives off the Antarctic coast.

In this story, he talks about the thinning ice, the changes underwater, and how all it’s all affecting scientists’ ability to do their jobs.

Interview with Director Werner Herzog

Onstage at BFI Southbank, the iconoclastic director shares his feelings with The Guardian on being nominated for an Oscar for his new documentary ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, why he loves living in Los Angeles and why being in Antarctica was a profoundly odd experience.

Technology and Ecological Catastrophe

“The film’s very title suggests a dual concern with those Antarctic landscapes occupying the ‘bottom’ or ‘end’ of the geographic world as well as the looming threat of ecological catastrophe which, for Herzog, represents the ‘end’ of the living, human world.”

JG Cinema’s analytical review of the film.

INFLUENCE FILM CLUB PLAYLIST

THE EYES OF THE FUTURE
Six films addressing the environmental issues of our time.

A Song of Our Warming Planet

When faced with the challenge of sharing the latest climate change discoveries, scientists often rely on data graphics and technical illustrations. University of Minnesota student Daniel Crawford came up with a completely different approach. He’s using his cello to communicate climate results through music.

The result is a haunting sequence that traces the warming of our planet year by year since the late 19th century.

IFC Interview with Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog said he didn’t go to Antarctica to make another penguin movie, but in this interview with IFC, the first question he’s asked is, “What do you believe was going through [the penguin’s] head?”

Read Herzog’s response to this question and many more on IFC.

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