Luc Jacquet’s March Of The Penguins is, astoundingly, the second most successful documentary ever made. Some credit for its success must go to the photography, which is first class – the camera gets up, close and personal with the Antarctic’s feathered stars. But let’s face it, superb nature documentaries are ten a penny. The sentimental film’s real appeal is weirdly political, particularly in America, where it has been held up as a shining example of family values and even, absurdly, as evidence of intelligent design.

Every winter, the Emperor Penguins of the Antarctic emerge from their ocean playground and trudge across 70 miles of ice floe to their breeding grounds. There, the males starve themselves for two months while balancing the new eggs on their feet, while the females walk back to the sea, grab some food and return to the stay-at-home dads. Then the dads pull on their hiking boots and waddle back to the sea. And so on. —BBC.co.uk

Director

Luc Jacquet

Luc Jacquet (5 December 1967 in Bourg-en-Bresse) is a French film director from Paris. He wrote and directed the movie March of the Penguins, which won an Oscar for best documentary feature in 2005. His current film is called The Fox And the Child. It has been released in Britain and Ireland in slightly re-edited dubbed English-language version with narration by Kate Winslet, and was released in the United States on 29 February 2008. Before his film directing career, Jacquet was a biologist. —Wikipedia