Penguin documentary. The 2005 national geographic documentary film, March of the Penguins takes us on a journey to the south pole in order to see the Emperor Penguins in their traditional breeding grounds in a fascinating mating ritual captured by award winning film makerLuc Jacquet. The film depicts the years journey across the frozen wilderness that begins in autumn when the penguins emerge out of the Antarctic ocean and travel to their ancestral breeding grounds. At this point they court and if successful a chick will hatch. This is just the beginning of an endeavor that will last for months because for the chick to survive, both parents must make multiple arduous journeys between their current location and the ocean to catch food.
This masterpiece of film making took more than one years worth of solid filming by cinematographers Laurent Chalet and Jérôme Maison which is no easy task as the antarctic is one of the most baron, cold and unforgiving environments on Earth. The end result narrated with combined efforts of Charles Berling, Romane Bohringer, Jules Sitruk and Morgan Freeman gives the viewer a unique insight into the life of one of the most intriguing animals on the face of the planet that won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
The reason for penguins traveling to this particular spot is because they know the ice will not melt or become unstable all year-round. While this is a huge advantage for raising a chick without incident it presents a problem for getting a constant supply of food as the nearest open water is more than 70 miles away. The Penguin diet consist mainly of fish which it needs to survive. This documentary film shows how such challenges are tackled by both mother and father penguins as they have to fend off predators and hunt themselves in temperatures that often fall below −62 °C. The March of the Penguins documentary shows in detail the life cycle of the emperor penguin without leaving any details out.