The Epic Story of the First Expedition
Down The World’s
Greatest and Deadliest River
A New IMAX® Theatre
Film From Orbita Max and Two-Time Academy Award®-Nominated
Producers MacGillivray Freeman Films.
| “The Nile is the most magnificent
river in the world. No other river can compare. And no
other river in the world is as closely associated with
a particular culture and society as is the Nile. Without
the Nile there would be no Egypt, no pharaohs, no pyramids.” |
--Pasquale Scaturro, expedition
leader
|
For thousands of years, man has been drawn to the Nile, known
as “the Mt. Everest of rivers.” The quest to find
its source consumed early explorers from the ancient Egyptians
to Napoleon to the legendary Sir Richard Burton and David
Livingstone. Over the past century, dozens of explorers have
attempted to run the mighty river in a single expedition,
but all have failed. At least a dozen men died trying, and
in recent years, three were shot, two drowned, and another
simply disappeared. Astonishingly, this epic journey has eluded
humankind for centuries—until now.
On April 28, 2004, two intrepid explorers—expedition
leader Pasquale Scaturro and his partner Gordon Brown—became
the first in history to conquer all 3,260 miles of the world’s
greatest river in a single descent from its source in the
Ethiopian highlands to the Mediterranean Sea. For 114 days,
the explorers and their crew faced nearly in-surmountable
challenges as they made their way down the Blue Nile and Nile
river in two rafts and a kayak, traversing three countries
in some of the world’s remotest regions. Deadly crocodiles
and hippos, the world’s most dangerous rapids, armed
bandits, AK-47-toting militia, blinding sandstorms, exposure
to malaria, and the relentless heat of the fierce desert sun
are just some of the obstacles they faced—all while
documenting their epic journey with an IMAX® camera and
two videocams.
The story of this remarkable adventure is the subject of a
new large format film, MYSTERY OF
THE NILE, from Orbita Max and Academy Award®-nominated
filmmakers MacGillivray Freeman Films, due in IMAX® theatres
and other large format cinemas on February 18, 2005. Directed
and written by Spanish filmmaker Jordi Llompart in his large
format film debut, and produced by Llompart and veteran large
format filmmaker Greg MacGillivray (two-time Oscar®-nominee,
THE LIVING SEA, DOLPHINS, EVEREST),
MYSTERY OF THE NILE features
an international squad of adventurers, each with a personal
mission. They include expedition leader Pasquale Scaturro,
a geophysicist and experienced guide who has climbed Mt. Everest
three times and run many of Africa’s toughest rivers;
his expedition partner, Gordon Brown, a renowned kayaker and
Emmy Award®-winning cinematographer who is one of few
people to have kayaked through extreme whitewater rapids with
the giant IMAX® camera rigged to his kayak; Dr. Mohamed
Megahed, one of Egypt’s top hydrologists who has come
to study the changing environmental reality of the river that
is so important to his country and family; Saskia Lange, a
journalist who is compelled by the human and spiritual dimensions
of the journey; Myriam Seco, an Spanish archaeologist sometimes
dubbed “the female Indiana Jones” who leads the
team on visits to the region’s pyramids; and Michel
L’Hullier, an adventure photographer hoping to capture
the spirit of the river and its people with his camera lens.
With the dazzling immediacy of large format photography, MYSTERY
OF THE NILE brings the expedition’s bold voyage
to life with unmistakable realism. Audiences will feel like
they are riding shotgun on the team’s 16-foot rafts
as they crash through the rapids in Ethiopia’s remote
desert canyons. They will feel the intense heat as the team
traverses the desert plains of Sudan on their way to Khartoum
where the Blue Nile merges with the White Nile to form the
Nile proper. They will witness the human struggle inherent
in such an arduous journey and watch as the crew overcomes
feelings of fear and frustration. But more than just a chronicle
of a groundbreaking expedition, MYSTERY
OF THE NILE also reveals a wondrous region that is
host to abundant historical, cultural and natural treasures,
where a connection to the ancient past informs our understanding
of the rapidly changing future.
“The Nile is the most magnificent river in the world,”
said Scaturro, who has written a book about the expedition
with co-author Richard Bangs (Mystery
of the Nile published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons).
“No other river can compare. And no other river in the
world is as closely associated with a particular culture and
society as is the Nile. Without the Nile there would be no
Egypt, no pharaohs, no pyramids. ”
Adds producer Greg MacGillivray: “The expedition down
the Blue Nile and Nile will fill audiences with awe. Pasquale
and his team overcame enormous hurdles to complete their bold
mission. It reminds me of the almost insurmountable challenges
our EVEREST team faced in
1996. As with that film, MYSTERY
OF THE NILE brings back to the rest of us a very human,
very moving story about determination and cooperation, all
through the visceral realism of IMAX photography.”
At the heart of MYSTERY
OF THE NILE lies the Blue Nile itself,
the main artery of the Nile river, which cuts a vital, life-sustaining
path from the remote, rugged highlands of Ethiopia through the
unexpected beauty of war-torn Sudan and on into modern Egypt,
where the river spills into the Mediterranean Sea at Alexandria.
Today, most Westerners associate the Nile with pyramids, Pharaohs
and the ancient Egyptians – with good reason. It was the
Egyptians who first dubbed the Nile “The River of Life”
and revered its annual floodwaters as a god due to its seemingly
mystical powers of providing everything they needed. Without
the Nile, and especially its annual summer floods, the rise
of ancient Egypt’s advanced civilization, which lasted
for more than 3,000 years, would have been impossible.
But the Egyptians were just one of many kingdoms in the region
that would come to rely on the Nile for sustenance and power.
MYSTERY OF THE NILE
also explores the equally mystifying relics of the lesser-known
Nubian kingdoms, who created their own spectacular black pyramids
at Meroe in Sudan, and the early Christian churches carved out
of sheer rock by 12th century Coptics in the sacred Ethiopian
city of Lalibela.
Says MYSTERY OF THE NILE
producer/director Jordi Llompart: “This film will truly
surprise audiences because it visits an area we see over and
over on the news as a place of war, poverty, famine, suffering
and danger. Yet this film brings an alternate, unexpected view
of the region’s tremendous beauty, its rich historical
achievement and a deeply felt connection between Westerners
and the people of the Nile region. ” |
