Emperor penguins are the only species that breeds in Antarctica through the winter, and this film follows one colony living on sea ice that will not survive the season. The footage tracks the birds through the cold months, when the ice sheet holding the colony is still solid enough to stand on, contrasting with summer, when it melts and the colony scatters before tour ships ever arrive. Adults are shown making trips of more than 100 miles across the ice to reach open water and feed, leaving chicks behind to wait. The chicks themselves are the film's clock: they have to grow their adult, waterproof feathers before the platform beneath them breaks apart, and the footage stays with them through that transition. Reaching the colony at all is presented as its own difficulty, since the window between frozen-solid ice and open water is narrow. The film stays close to this one colony rather than surveying penguin species broadly, using it to show what breeding on sea ice actually requires.