The World is Our Oyster: WIFFA

Every August the Winter International Film Festival of Antarctica is organized and opened to all inhabited bases on the continent. Then everyone watches each other's films and votes on which are the best.

There are two categories: the open category, which has few or no regulations, and the 48-hour submission category. These films can be a max of 5 minutes long, and they have to be produced in a 48-hour period after a group of requirements are distributed. This year's requirements were that each film had to include: the sound of an elephant trumpeting, the phrase "may the force be with you," a stethoscope, a mythical creature, and a catwalk strut. It's really helpful to know this before watching any of those videos, or they're likely to be even more confusing to you that they're already going to be.

Let me be clear: I'm not saying these videos are actually good or that you should invest the 2+ hours of time out of your life that I and a bunch of others down here invested to watch them all recently. Most of them are completely confounding and some are gross, if you want to know the truth. But they are a reflection of life and culture on Antarctic bases across the continent...so here you go! (Minus a few that are password protected, so I have to assume the people who made them didn't want them available to the world at large.) I do really recommend that you watch the South Pole open category submissions, as they're videos of the night sky down here taken by one of our winter-overs, and they're really beautiful.

Open South Pole https://vimeo.com/177573714
Open South Pole https://vimeo.com/168154047
Open South Pole https://vimeo.com/162807842
Open Vostok https://vimeo.com/174517929
Open McMurdo BFC https://vimeo.com/171511769
Open Kerguelen https://vimeo.com/176870836
Open Syowa https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ai1iJr3njUqGgaR0vtS9VB44gsp0qA
Open Esperanza https://vimeo.com/user55067202/wiffaopen_faith-hope-and-lovebae
Open McMurdo Mactown

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzWdzWp_tabZZmg4Qm05UWxCaE0/view?usp=sharing_eid&ts=57a77353

48 Crozet https://vimeo.com/177937377

48 Davis    https://vimeo.com/177968697
48 Arctowski   https://vimeo.com/177944376
48 Casey https://vimeo.com/177909174
48 Vostok https://vimeo.com/177888206
48 SANAE https://vimeo.com/177887608
48 Amsterdam Island    https://vimeo.com/177852096