Ice Grave

On July 11, 1897, three men - the Swedish engineer Salomon August Andrée and his companions Nils Strindberg and Knut Fraenkel - set off from Spitsbergen for the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon, a daring attempt to conquer the Arctic from the air. Contact is lost after a few days. They are never seen again. Thirty-three years later, on August 6, 1930, a sealing ship makes a chilling discovery on the remote Island of Kvitøya, the northernmost part of Svalbard. The expedition’s remains, bodies frozen in time beneath the snow, alongside journals and undeveloped film material. Ninety-three of the 240 recovered photographs are salvaged. The documentary reconstructs this expedition between delusion and vision, between scientific ambition and human vulnerability as a compelling mosaic of past and present – ​​an archaeological crime thriller about the price of discovery, the beauty of the unknown, and the melting of memory in the ice of time, with a touch of tragic, unrequited love.

Billed Cast

H

Hélène Gaudy

Self - Interviewee

T

Tyrone Martinsson

Self - Interviewee

Bea Uusma

Self - Interviewee

G

Gunnar Horn

Self (archive footage)

F

François Gillerot

Self - Narrator (voice) (French version)

U

Ulrike Johannson

Self - Narrator (voice) (German version)

Henrik Ekman

Self - Narrator (voice) (Swedish version)

S

Sandrine Grange

Self - Additional French Voice (voice)

Jean-François Legonin

Self - Additional French Voice (voice)

R

Robin Brosch

Self - Additional German Voice (voice)

D

Dagmar Dreke

Self - Additional German Voice (voice)

M

Martin Lohmann

Self - Additional German Voice (voice)