Best of the Fest: Box Office Hit - 'Kon-Tiki'
Award Winners Showcase - Doha Tribecca Film Festival 2012
Synopsis
In ‘Kon-Tiki’, co-directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg – whose ‘Max Manus’ was a smash hit at the Norwegian box office in 2009 – capture all the danger, excitement and sheer natural beauty of a true Man-versus-Nature adventure. When Norwegian scientist and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl developed the now widely accepted theory that the peoples of Polynesia first migrated from South America and not, as previously believed, from Asia, the international scientific community openly mocked him. Refusing to be deterred in his quest to prove his hypothesis – not even by the notable fact that he could not swim – he embarked on one of history’s most celebrated scientific adventures. In 1947, Heyerdahl built a raft of balsa wood and travelled across the open seas from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands, thereby demonstrating the plausibility of his theory – and changing the history books forever.
Credits
- Director
- Joachim Roenning, Espen Sandberg