Miriama Kamo, Julia Sartorio and their film crew are stuck in Antarctica.
New Zealand journalist Miriama Kamo and a film crew of four others are stuck in Antarctica, with inclement weather and mechanical issues jeopardising flights in and out of the ice-covered continent.
Kamo travelled to New Zealand Antarctic research station Scott Base for a week’s filming for a joint TVNZ and RNZ documentary following two astronomy tōhunga, Professor Rangi Matamua (ONZM) and Mataia Keepa.
The scholars are in Antarctica to study the movement of the stars, sun and moon on the continent, looking at Antarctica through a Māori lens and investigating how to export Mātauranga Māori from one place to another.
The trip is taking place during “winfly”, the transitional period between winter and summer, during which Antarctica’s weather can be particularly tumultuous. Most scientists visit during summer, but this shoulder season is the only time that provided suitable astronomical conditions.
“It’s a really special time for us to be here,” Kamo told the Herald.
The crew were due to fly back to Aotearoa on August 25, but stormy weather and mechanical issues have left them stranded in the isolated locale for eight days.
“During winfly, they have only three flights,” director Julia Sartorio told the Herald over the phone.
“We were on the first flight, that’s the only flight that’s landed in Antarctica ... because since we’ve been here, we’ve experienced all forms of different weather, including severe storms, one of the worst storms, they said, this year.”
The tempest, which arrived on the fourth day of their trip, saw them under category 1 conditions “for quite a few days”, a classification of weather considered so rough “that you aren’t allowed to go outside at all”.
Wind speeds at one point reached an estimated 100 knots. “You could feel the wind’s ferocity” Sartorio recalled, “in the shaking of the glass in the base [windows]”.
“It was pretty incredible actually, how Mother Nature is so powerful, but the visibility [was] probably even less than a foot in front of your face.”
At one point, Sartorio and director of photography Dominic Fryer found themselves battered by 50-knot winds while setting up infrared camera equipment in the pitch black. “We literally had to hold each other because we couldn’t stand up.”
Making the crew’s departure more difficult, the US military aircraft they were due to fly back on also suffered mechanical problems and delays sourcing a necessary replacement part.
“Now another storm has come in. So, we’re just on this day-by-day kind of notice. Every morning, we have to wait to see if we can leave,” Sartorio said.
Though it has forced a pivot in their documentary story structure, the co-producers said the unfurling flurries have been rather exciting.
“I just feel so privileged that we got to come in winter where, you know, so few people get to come,” Sartorio said.
“To feel the full force of Mother Nature and just to sort of surrender to nature. We don’t know what’s happening. We’re not in charge here. We just got to go with the flow.”
Going with the flow sees the group hunkered down at Scott Base with the 12 staff who live there over the winter period.
“It is quite an invasion for us to arrive and to be doing our work, the crew has to adjust to that ... they’ve been alone for so long it was quite a big thing for the crew here,” Kamo said.
The temperatures, which at times got down to -50C, posed a creative challenge as well as a physical one. “It was kind of uncharted waters. We didn’t know if any of our gear would work. We had to take a bit of a wing and a prayer and we brought over nine cameras because in case they broke.” Sartorio said.
The crew took on board advice from experienced peers such as film-maker Anthony Powell and utilised a decent dose of Kiwi ingenuity to meet the challenge. Sartorio packed 150 hand-warmers, used on the crew and wrapped around cameras “literally like a cosy hot water bottle”.
The technical creativity had paid off. Sartorio said they have “captured some beautiful auroras, which are just stunning, and also shooting stars and sunrises and sunsets".
“It’s been quite breathtaking.”
Another once-in-a-lifetime experience saw the group venture out to the middle of the sea ice in one of the few hours of sunlight.
“You’re standing in the middle of a white expanse, standing on the ocean basically with the sun setting [and] filling like almost 360 [degrees] of the sky with beautiful orange, reds and yellows and then you see a perfect glitter of the moon kind of coming up, with the stars,” Sartorio said.
Kamo said the trip had reinforced the “wild and amazing” power of the elements. “You can appreciate the power, just being inside watching the snow hitting the buildings ... everybody here is used to those sorts of storms, but they’re still impressed.”
The group hope to fly home tomorrow and Kamo said that although they are keen to be reunited to with the families, they are pretty easy-going. “As Rangi and Mataia say, when ngā atua (the gods) are ready to release us, that’s when we’ll leave.”
Ranginui: Antarctica’s Dark Skies is produced by PutiPuti Productions with funding from Te Māngai Pāho and Antarctica New Zealand’s Community Education programme. It is due to be released on July 12, 2026.