The Snowman

In 1978 Jimmy Graham, a thirty four year old happily married the father of two, scored his dream job with Operation Deepfreeze - training American scientists in survival skills in Antarctica. He left in December of that year. Three months later he arrived back agitated and paranoid. He said that while out on the ice he had stumbled onto a secret American nuclear site and the CIA had given him a chemical lobotomy to keep him quiet. Jimmy rapidly descended into schizophrenia. His behaviour became so frightening that his wife Frances fled to safety, taking their two children Sean and Juliet with her. For thirty years the family lived with this story, but no one ever dug deeper. The man they loved went away sane and came back permanently fractured – his mind was a blizzard. Now Juliet wants to know what exactly did happen on that frozen continent.

• woman director