The Forbidden Quest is a 1993

1993 in film

The year 1993 in film involved many significant films, including the blockbuster hits Jurassic Park, The Fugitive and The Firm. -Events:...

 mockumentary

Mockumentary

A mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...

 written and directed by Peter Delpeut

Peter Delpeut

Peter Delpeut is a Dutch filmmaker. Several of his films have heavily used found footage.-Partial filmography:*Lyrical Nitrate *The Forbidden Quest *Cinéma Perdu *Felice...Felice......

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The film won the 1994 International Fantasy Film Special Jury Award at the Fantasporto

Fantasporto

Fantasporto, also known as Fantas, is an international film festival, annually organized since 1981 in Porto, Portugal. Giving screen space to commercial feature films, auteur films and experimental projects from all over the world, Fantasporto has created enthusiastic audiences, ranging from...

 (aka Festival Internacional de Cinema do Porto) in Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

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The film won the 1993 Special Jury Prize at the Nederlands Film Festival (aka Nederlandse Filmdagen) It was released in Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 theaters on April 8, 1993.

Plot

In 1931, a documentary filmmaker hears of J.C. Sullivan who may know the fate of the Hollandia, a Norwegian ship that sailed to Antarctica in 1905 and disappeared. J.C. Sullivan was the carpenter on that ill-fated voyage and is the last known surviving crewmember of the Hollandia. The filmmaker interviews Sullivan who is also able to supply him with canisters of old film footage which back up the unbelievable accounts that Sullivan describes.

The film, made in 1993, is presented as a 1931 documentary of a series of events that occurred in 1905. The footage of the fictional expedition is from other polar expeditions of the time. These clips are interspersed with the interview of J.C. Sullivan.

Reception

The New York Times Janet Maslin

Janet Maslin

Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...

praised the "honest power of the film's archival scenes" while condemning its narrative as slow-paced, portentous, and poorly-written.