Shackleton is a 2002

2002 in television

The year 2002 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 2002.For the American TV schedule, see: 2002–03 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-1940s:...

 British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 television film broadcast in two parts by Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

. Directed by Charles Sturridge

Charles Sturridge

Charles B. G. Sturridge is an English screenwriter, producer, stage, television and film director.-Personal life:Sturridge was born in London, England to Alyson Bowman Vaughan and Jerome Sturridge. He was educated at Stonyhurst College...

, the cast includes Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing , Hamlet Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from...

 in the title role, along with Kevin McNally

Kevin McNally

Kevin McNally is an English actor who has worked in theatre and radio extensively as well as in film and television.-Life and career:...

, Lorcan Cranitch

Lorcan Cranitch

Lorcan Cranitch is an Irish actor.Born in Dublin, Cranitch became involved in drama while a student, and moved to London where he entered RADA in 1980. His first major role on British television was as Tim Healy in the 1991 BBC drama series, Parnell and the Englishwoman...

, Embeth Davidtz

Embeth Davidtz

Embeth Jean Davidtz is an American-born actress who spent much of her early life in South Africa.-Early life:Davidtz was born in Lafayette, Indiana, while her father was studying chemical engineering at Purdue University. Her parents, John and Jean, later moved to Trenton, New Jersey, and then...

, Danny Webb

Danny Webb (actor)

Danny Webb is a British television and film actor. He may be best known for his role as the prisoner Morse in Alien 3. He has appeared in many famous British television programmes including The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Emmerdale Farm, Our Friends in the North, A Touch of Frost, Agatha...

 and Phoebe Nicholls

Phoebe Nicholls

Phoebe Nicholls is an English film, television, and stage actor. She is known for her roles as Cordelia Flyte in Brideshead Revisited and as the mother of John Merrick in The Elephant Man....

 (also the director's wife) as Lady Shackleton. It was filmed in the UK, Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

 and Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

. The film used first-hand accounts by the men on the expedition to re-tell the story, and Roland Huntford

Roland Huntford

Roland Huntford is an author, principally of biographies of Polar explorers. He lives in Cambridge, and was formerly Scandinavian correspondent of The Observer, also acting as their winter sports correspondent...

, the author of the definitive Shackleton biography, was a production advisor.

In North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 it was broadcast on the A&E Network

A&E Network

The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...

. The film was nominated for seven Emmy Awards, six BAFTA Awards and a Golden Globe Award

Golden Globe Award

The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...

.

Plot summary

The films tells the true story of explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his 1914 Antarctic expedition

Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition , also known as the Endurance Expedition, is considered the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent...

 on the ship Endurance

Endurance (1912 ship)

The Endurance was the three-masted barquentine in which Sir Ernest Shackleton sailed for the Antarctic on the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition...

. After the ship is trapped and then crushed by pack ice, Shackleton vows to find rescue for his men. He undertakes an epic journey across ice, 800 miles of the Southern Ocean

Southern Ocean

The Southern Ocean comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60°S latitude and encircling Antarctica. It is usually regarded as the fourth-largest of the five principal oceanic divisions...

 and an uncharted mountain range on South Georgia Island, to find a whaling

Whaling

Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...

 station from where he rescues his entire shipwreck

Shipwreck

A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....

ed party. Not a single man died in this real life epic adventure.