Exclusive two-disc film documenting the British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa in the summer of 1997. The unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to the team shows the preparations, the training, the fun, the team selection, the 'earthy' language, the bonding, the awesome task of playing and some shocking footage of injuries. Despite securing the series with wins in the first two tests, the Lions remained motivated by the prospect of a 3-0 whitewash, a feat never achieved against the Springboks throughout the century.
Snow blankets the trees and green lights dance in a star-filled sky. For a brief time during the festive season, our thoughts turn to a winter wonderland, far to the north. It’s a place best known to outsiders as Lapland, the magical home of Santa Claus. But far from the festive lights, Santa’s home is even more enchanting than you may realise.
Trees talk, know family ties and care for their young? Is this too fantastic to be true? German forester Peter Wohlleben and scientist Suzanne Simard have been observing and investigating the communication between trees over decades. And their findings are most astounding.
This film, three years in the making, The remote forests of Kalkalpen National Park in Austria, the largest area of wilderness in the European Alps, have been left untouched by humans for nearly a quarter of a century in order to return to their natural, primeval state. The landscape regenerates itself in dramatic cycles of growth and decay, and this bold hands-off method of conservation yields salient results: the lynx, absent from the area for 115 years, has returned.
A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. This amazing, true-life tale is touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader... to adventure!!
A young couple battle entrenched tradition and hostile forces to bet on nature for the future of their failing, four-hundred-year-old estate. Ripping down the fences, they set the land back to the wild and entrust its recovery to a motley mix of animals both tame and wild, beginning a grand experiment.
Long Gone Wild focuses on the plight of captive orcas, picking up where the acclaimed documentary Blackfish left off while telling a uniquely new and different story...
You can find a bit of buttermilk grass here and there: in both natural and urban environments, sometimes even in old film footage. A plant that is hardly noticed in the wild as a weed, but in laboratories it opens up a new understanding of hereditary memory and the structuring of life. The poetic essay film follows the plant from the natural habitat of the hentolite weed to the archives and cellular evolution. Whizzing camera shots and expeditions deep into the plant's innards are addictive to the eye. New technology depicts the vibrant reorganisation of life, which on the big screen looks like a mysterious fantasy world. The film is accompanied by the impressive music of a symphony orchestra. Together with the music, the film is at times reminiscent of two sections of Disney's 1940 cartoon Fantasia: the abstract animation in the first section and the formation of the Earth and the birth of life in the fourth. The film premiered at the Nordisk Panorama Film Festival 2022.
During social and political turmoil, what is the manifestation of divine intervention? How do the gods and goddesses act in the volatility of the contemporary world? If they walk on earth as men and women, how do they endure the chaos of modernity? Centering on the terrible and majestic incarnations of Goddess Kali and her celestial avatars, this film is a metaphysical contemplation in times of perpetual emergencies. Avikunthak’s remarkable sense of forms finds expression in the extraordinary combination of performance and essayistic cinematic practices.
For two-thirds of the year, the Little Rann is a desert. Suddenly, in August, monsoon winds whip up the Arabian Sea and carry it 100 km inland. The desert and these mounds soon become islands and homes to high concentrations of rarely-seen, endangered and spectacular wildlife.
40 years after inventing armored suits that protect divers from attacks by smaller shark species of sharks, marine biologist, Jeremiah Sullivan, faces off against hungry hammerheads and deadly tiger sharks to measure their bite force, body strength and ability to chew through his advanced materials before creating new armor he’ll test by putting himself inside the devastating jaws of a 14-foot tiger shark.
This personal documentary is the story of Teresa Marshall, who grew up on a British Columbia ranch. Every child needs a demon, and Teresa took battle against rattlesnakes. In the dry interior of B.C., the south Okanagan and Similkameen valleys form the bio-region known as Canada's "pocket desert." As settlers' dreams of creating an agricultural Eden erase fragile desert lands that support a breathtaking array of wild species, the narrator and her snake-hunting neighbours are forced to examine their environmental attitudes.
Warru, or black-footed rock-wallaby, is one of South Australia's most endangered mammals. In 2007, when numbers dropped below 200 in the APY Lands in the remote north-west of the State, the Warru Recovery Team was formed to help save the precious species from extinction. Bringing together contemporary science, practical on-ground threat management and traditional Anangu ecological knowledge, this unique decade-long program has celebrated the release of dozens of warru to the wild for the first time.
Our world is the home of millions of plant as well as animal species and provides several territories, each with its own geological and climatic conditions: steep mountains, deep forests, wide oceans and arctic ice deserts. The inhabitants have adapted to its different conditions and are still developing new strategies to survive. “Wonderful World 3D” not only takes a look at the interesting creatures of our planet, but also highlights cosmological circumstances, which made our world unique, diversified and above all so adorable.
60 years ago, almost nothing was known of elephants in the wild. But then one young Scottish biologist changed that forever. In 1965 Iain Douglas-Hamilton arrived in Tanzania to live alongside African elephants. Later joined by his wife Oria and daughters Saba and Dudu, elephants became central to their lives with matriarch Boadicea and gentle young mother Virgo cherished like human relatives. But this garden Eden was short-lived as an ivory poaching epidemic swept across Africa forcing Iain to switch from pioneering scientist to maverick conservationist. He became a lone crusader against the international Ivory trade which was finally banned in 1989. Now back in the field and revealing even more about the fascinating world of elephants, Iain’s work continues alongside a new generation of Kenyan conservationists. This inspiring documentary combines stunning wildlife imagery with the story of a remarkable life showing how sometimes you have to stand alone to protect what you love.
Travel to Alaska's great wilderness, a place of incomparable beauty and power where you will witness close-up the amazing cycles of life in one of the last pristine corners of our planet Earth. Soar over Mt. McKinley, the tallest people in North America, crown jewel of the vast Alaska range, piercing clouds nearly four miles high. Explore the vibrant territory beneath this stunningly beautiful mountain. Watch caribou roam the plains, listen to the haunting howl of the wolf, witness the flight of the majestic golden eagle, meet a mother grizzly and her two cubs as they emerge from winter's hibernation. You'll be swept up in the drama and beauty of this unique wilderness and you'll enjoy for many years to come its unforgettable scenery.
In this special documentary that inspired a two-season television series, scientists and other experts speculate about what the Earth, animal life, and plant life might be like if, suddenly, humanity no longer existed, as well as the effect humanity's disappearance might have on the artificial aspects of civilization.
In the heart of Uganda, there are lion prides that spend much of their lives in the trees – a rare and mysterious behavior seen in few other places in Africa – and little is known about why they do it. Big cat biologist Alexander Braczkowski sets out to study these lions, and his journey takes an unexpected, emotional turn.
Journey across India, a breath taking land shaped by a myriad of cultures, customs and traditions. Come face to face with the Bengal Tiger and explore the work of this majestic creature with stunning clarity. Soar over blue-hazed Himalayan peaks and sweep down towards the thundering Indian Ocean as we celebrate the power and beauty of India's greatest ambassador - the mighty Bengal Tiger.