In production. Expected completion 2026. 90 min (3 × 30 min)
Script: Dorothea Braun, Jens Becker
Director: Jens Becker, Dorothea Braun
Camera: Susanna Salonen
Editing: Annett Illjew
Music: Hannes Gill
Producer: Dorothea Braun
Co-Producer: Kurt Otterbacher
Producer BSX: Hansjürgen Schmölzer
Funded by:
A production of DOOR+BRIDGE FILM and strandfilm-Produktions GmbH cooperation with BSX Schmölzer GmbH.
The Arctic has always exerted a magical attraction. It was considered invincible for thousands of years. The eternal ice claimed countless victims – people who ventured to the North Pole, explored it, often died tragically and became heroes. We’re talking about men. But women also played a large part in the success of the voyages of discovery. They led and funded polar expeditions and saved crews’ lives. Today they are largely forgotten. The film ICEWOMEN wants to change that.
Nowhere in the world is there a more forbidding place than the endless, frigid Arctic expanses. For thousands of years, the far north was considered invincible, which only increased its magical appeal. The hunt to be the first human to reach the North Pole has cost countless lives and swallowed ships.
People who nevertheless ventured into the ice desert and explored it were celebrated as heroes. The pursuit of proving the existence of an “open polar sea” or the “Northwest Passage,” of discovering the “large island” at the North Pole or the “magnetic mountain” demanded superhuman efforts from explorers under extreme weather conditions.
The history of Arctic research therefore often reads like a heroic epic in which rugged, fiercely determined, bearded men wrapped in furs take centre stage — many of whom met a fatal end. Their names resonate to this day and speak of their audacity: Roald Amundsen, James Cook, John Franklin, Francis Hall, Fridtjof Nansen and Robert E. Peary, to name just a few.
But in the realm of darkness and mist, ice and gloom, far from comfort and safety, it was often women who brought expeditions and crews back safely, who secured supplies, provided vital clothing and fur boots, and warmed men who would otherwise have frozen to death.
They were fearless companions who brought themselves and their crews through the polar night and the cracking of the frozen sea. It was women who collected important scientific data, who mapped foreign coasts for the first time and immortalized the eternal ice in travel reports, photographs, film footage and watercolours. Along the way, they helped their partners, husbands and colleagues achieve fame and glory.
The fact that women played a key role in the success of the great expeditions, that they even financed and led polar expeditions themselves, that they saved the lives of the crews and their superiors, is largely unknown or forgotten today.