June 14, 2017 at 3:53 p.m.
Academy Award-nominated foreign film 'Kon Tiki' to be screened June 15 at Nicolet College
Academy Award-nominated foreign film 'Kon Tiki' to be screened June 15 at Nicolet College
But that didn't stop the driven Norwegian adventurer from building a rudimentary raft and sailing, with his crew of five, an astounding 4,300 miles across the open Pacific Ocean.
The gutsy expedition is the subject of the foreign film "Kon Tiki," a modern-day, action-packed adaptation of the journey that will be shown in the Nicolet College Theatre at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, June 15. Admission is free.
"It was nothing short of an insane voyage. Just crazy," Steven Schreier, a Rhinelander film aficionado who will present the film with Tom Jerow, said in a press release.
"Nobody could have been less prepared to make the journey than Thor Heyerdahl. He made it by sheer will and determination, despite the odds."
And it's that exact spirit that attracted Schreier and Jerow to select the Academy Award-nominated film for the last of three foreign films they curated for the college's 2016-17 Nicolet Live! series.
Produced in 2012, "Kon Tiki" tells the tale of Heyerdahl and his crew who in 1947 set off to prove that people from South America could have settled the Polynesian Islands, more than 4,000 miles away. They built a raft out of balsa logs using pre-Columbian technology identical to what South Americans would have used at the beginning of the second millennia.
"It's a classic tale of Man vs. Nature in the 'African Queen' genre of storytelling," Schreier explained. "It harkens back to films popular in the 1950s and early 1960s where people went on these grand adventures in exotic locales."
The film that will be shown at Nicolet is not the documentary produced in the 1950s.
Along with presenting the film, Schreier and Jerow will also lead a discussion with the audience about the piece and answer questions.
Earlier in the Nicolet Live! season, the two presented two other foreign films, "The Host" and "The Fairy."
"People have this idea that foreign films aren't that accessible, on a personal level," Schreier explained. "We wanted to bring these films to the Northwoods to give people the opportunity to expand and broaden their idea of cinema. The whole world makes films and some of them are very, very good."
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