Sourabha Rao, the producer of Miracle in Antarctica, a new film chronicling the story of the building of Dakshin Gangotri, India’s first scientific base station in the frozen continent, says she is constantly surprised by the fact that the story has not been told in as many ways as possible. “It is a privilege for us to tell a story like that,” says the Bengaluru-based writer, poet and filmmaker who thinks of this initiative as groundbreaking. “A project of that scale was not accomplished before 1983-84 and hasn’t happened since, at least not at that pace; over one Antarctic summer.”
The idea for the film, which her husband Santosh Saligram has directed, emerged from a serendipitous meeting with Harsh Kumar Gupta, the geophysicist and seismologist who was sent to Antarctica to lead this impossible mission.
“One of our friends, also a filmmaker, Prakash Matada, bumped into Dr Gupta at a party in early 2025,” recalls Sourabha. Dr Gupta, who had already written a book, Building Dakshin Gangotri at Antarctica: A Miracle, published in 2021 by the Geological Society of India, and was actively looking for someone to make a film about this mission.
Since Prakash was tied up with other projects at the time, he immediately reached out to Sourabha and Santosh, the co-founders of the Hamsagatha Foundation, a Bengaluru-based not-for-profit focused on impactful storytelling. “We just had a very elaborate call, and by the end of that, we decided to take it up.”
The biggest challenge at the beginning of the project, as it often is, was funding. “No matter how passionate and hardworking we are to tell or retell a story, and no matter how good a project is, it needs monetary support at the end of the day.”
Though Prakash had made it very clear that there was no money for the project, it did not stop them from trying to meet Gupta on his next visit to Bengaluru. “He was so humble and approachable when we met him, asking about what we did as professionals instead of jumping straight into talking about his story. That was really nice.”
One thing that really stayed with Sourabha was what the then 83-year-old scientist told her after he had given her the gist of the project. “He told us that he wanted to do it as quickly as possible, because time was not on his side. That hit us really hard,” she says, adding that this statement cemented their decision. “We didn’t know how yet, but we knew we had to make this happen.”
They began by first reaching out to some of the people who had been part of the expedition: Gupta, who lives in Hyderabad, of course, but also Ashok Hanjura in Delhi and KJ Mathew in Kochi. “Dr Gupta offered some seed funding to start the project,” explains Sourabha, who, with Santosh, began shooting interviews for the film in May last year. Around the same time, they also began looking for funds, which, after plenty of paperwork, their foundation finally received from the Ashraya Hastha Trust, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and Samagata Foundation. “Once we knew we were going to get this support, we went all out.”
The film uses a mix of interviews, archival material, stock footage and animation to tell the story of not just Gupta’s life and memories of that fateful summer, but also the relevance of Antarctica today, especially in the age of global warming and extreme weather events.
“Standing up to the gravitas of the story or the scientists who made it happen was a monumental responsibility,” says Santosh, whose biggest practical challenge was finding enough archival material to support the storytelling. “For a contemporary audience or diverse, mixed demographic, there has to be a lot of visual support, and initially there was just not enough material,” he says.
Meticulous investigation, and yes, a little bit of luck, would soon change that. “We managed to find an old documentary that helped us immensely,” he says. Then came the task of putting it all together on the editing table, says Santosh, who also worked with the Indiranagar-based LastBench Studio to help recreate certain scenes and fill the gaps in the narrative.“Using actors wasn’t an option, for multiple reasons, so I am glad we found a team who understood what was required and brought in that aesthetic,” he says.
While they had initially planned to make a short film, Miracle in Antarctica soon grew into a full-length documentary, with a background score by the Indian fusion band, Lakkshya. “The members are all trained in Indian classical music, but they experiment with other Western music like jazz. We wanted to be rooted in Indianness, but have a global appeal, and they understood our vision,” says Sourabha.
What the duo cherish the most about the entire process was the time spent with the scientists and their families. “They were all such good storytellers,” says Sourabha, who has especially fond memories of what happened once the cameras stopped rolling. “We had such great conversations, so unexpectedly human, where we shared meals with them, talking about everything under the sun. We got to see the people behind the scientists whose story we were telling,” she says, pointing out that while the film does depict the geopolitical importance of setting up the station in Antarctica, it is not intended to generate nationalistic fervour.
Though, of course, she is proud that Indian scientists achieved this, “we are wildlife conservationists first, and the crux of the film is how important Antarctica is for our planet. When we think about planetary health, we can’t think about it in terms of nations but as members of an entire species on a living planet.”
In her view, visual storytelling is one of the best ways to achieve this, “given that it can make people pay attention to the immediacy of certain issues we are facing today, perhaps even leading to some change in policy.” In keeping with this larger goal, Sourabha says they made sure that their interviews went beyond the story of just the research station, zooming out to look at things like planetary health and the impact of climate change.
“A project like this can’t just be about nostalgia; it has to be relevant, not just for the present, but also the future,” she says. Given that many of these perspectives and views come from these highly credible scientific voices, she truly hopes that more people will pay attention to these issues. “We are just amplifying their voices through this film.”
Miracle in Antarctica will premiere on October 28, 6.30 pm at the Bangalore International Centre (BIC) in Domlur