Trama

In 1947, with five loyal friends in tow, explorer Thor Heyerdahl sails a fragile balsa wood raft along an ancient path some 4,300 miles across the Pacific.

The Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Pacific Ocean in a balsawood raft in 1947, together with five men, to prove that South Americans back in pre-Columbian times could have crossed the ocean and settled on Polynesian islands. After financing the trips with loans and donations, they set off on an epic 101-day-long trip across 8000 kilometers, while the world was waiting for the result of the trip. The film tells about the origin of the idea, the preparations, and the events on the trip. The "Kon-Tiki" was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, and "Kon-Tiki" is an old name for this god. Heyerdahl filmed the expedition, which later became the Academy Award winning documentary in 1951, and he wrote a book about the expedition that was translated into 70 languages and sold more than 50 millions copies around the world. Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times, although most anthropologists now believe they did not. Anyway he proved that it was possible by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at that time. The trip took 101 days over 4,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean before the "Kon-Tiki" crashed onto the dangerous reefs outside Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947. All crewmen survived, and the "Kon-Tiki" was taken back to Norway. She is now featured in the Kon-Tiki Museum.—OJT

In 1947, the world was gripped with excitement as the young Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl embarked on an astonishing expedition - a journey of 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean on the raft "Kon-Tiki". From his days living in the Marquesas with his wife Liv, Thor suspected that the South Sea Islands had been settled by ancient South Americans from thousands of miles to the east. Despite his inability to swim and his fear of water, Thor decided to confirm his theory by sailing the legendary voyage himself.—Anonymous

Bent on proving the radical, and perhaps, the heretical theory that the Polynesian islands were first populated by South Americans rather than Asians, the intrepid Norwegian ethnographer, Thor Heyerdahl, embarks on a dangerous expedition to retrace the steps of those first explorers, in 1947. Mocked by the entire scientific community, Thor, along with a small crew of five bold companions, set out on an 8000-kilometres, more-than-three-month voyage across the unforgiving Pacific Ocean on the Kon-Tiki, their handcrafted balsa-wood raft, employing only pre-Columbian techniques. In the end, during this treacherous journey from Peru to the Polynesian Tuamotu Archipelago, the formidable adventurers devoid of modern equipment finally proved their point with sheer determination and incredible obstinacy.—Nick Riganas