“The Nile is the most magnificent river in the world. No other river can compare. And no other river in the world is as closely associated with a particular culture and society as is the Nile. Without the Nile there would be no Egypt, no pharaohs, no pyramids.”
--Pasquale Scaturro, expedition leader
Measuring 6680km in length, the Nile is the world’s longest river. It brought the nation of Egypt into being and its banks are clustered with the temples and tombs of the country’s illustrious past. Luxor and Aswan are the jewels in the crown and few can resist time spent on the water itself.
A breathtaking cinematic adventure that takes you on an expedition down the world’s greatest and most deadly river, the Blue Nile. For 114 days, a team of explorers led by Pasquale Scaturro and Gordon Brown face seemingly insurmountable challenges as they make their way along all 3,260 miles of the river to become the first in history to complete a full descent of the Blue Nile from source to sea.
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Mystery of the Nile. Video hosted on Youtube. For thousands of years, man has been drawn to the Nile, known as “the Mt. Everest of rivers.” The quest to find its source consumed early explorers from the ancient Egyptians to Napoleon to the legendary Sir Richard Burton and David Livingstone. Over the past century, dozens of explorers have attempted to run the mighty river in a single expedition, but all have failed. At least a dozen men died trying, and in recent years, three were shot, two drowned, and another simply disappeared. Astonishingly, this epic journey has eluded humankind for centuries—until now.
On April 28, 2004, two intrepid explorers—expedition leader Pasquale Scaturro and his partner Gordon Brown—became the first in history to conquer all 3,260 miles of the world’s greatest river in a single descent from its source in the Ethiopian highlands to the Mediterranean Sea. For 114 days, the explorers and their crew faced nearly in-surmountable challenges as they made their way down the Blue Nile and Nile river in two rafts and a kayak, traversing three countries in some of the world’s remotest regions. Deadly crocodiles and hippos, the world’s most dangerous rapids, armed bandits, AK-47-toting militia, blinding sandstorms, exposure to malaria, and the relentless heat of the fierce desert sun are just some of the obstacles they faced—all while documenting their epic journey with an IMAX® camera and two videocams.
The story of this remarkable adventure is the subject of a new large format film, MYSTERY OF THE NILE, from Orbita Max and Academy Award®-nominated filmmakers MacGillivray Freeman Films, due in IMAX® theatres and other large format cinemas on February 18, 2005. Directed and written by Spanish filmmaker Jordi Llompart in his large format film debut, and produced by Llompart and veteran large format filmmaker Greg MacGillivray (two-time Oscar®-nominee, THE LIVING SEA, DOLPHINS, EVEREST), MYSTERY OF THE NILE features an international squad of adventurers, each with a personal mission. They include expedition leader Pasquale Scaturro, a geophysicist and experienced guide who has climbed Mt. Everest three times and run many of Africa’s toughest rivers; his expedition partner, Gordon Brown, a renowned kayaker and Emmy Award®-winning cinematographer who is one of few people to have kayaked through extreme whitewater rapids with the giant IMAX® camera rigged to his kayak; Dr. Mohamed Megahed, one of Egypt’s top hydrologists who has come to study the changing environmental reality of the river that is so important to his country and family; Saskia Lange, a journalist who is compelled by the human and spiritual dimensions of the journey; Myriam Seco, an Spanish archaeologist sometimes dubbed “the female Indiana Jones” who leads the team on visits to the region’s pyramids; and Michel L’Hullier, an adventure photographer hoping to capture the spirit of the river and its people with his camera lens.
The word "Nile" comes from Greek Neilos, of unknown derivation. In the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥ'pi or iteru, meaning "great river", represented by the hieroglyphs shown on the right (literally itrw). In Coptic, the words piaro (Sahidic) or phiaro (Bohairic) meaning "the river" (lit. p(h).iar-o "the.canal-great") come from the same ancient name.
From: IMAX.
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