A stunning trek from the vale of Kashmir, via Sind Valley and Kargil and Lamayaru Monastry.
NOVA: Extreme Animal Weapons From lobster claws and dog teeth to bee stings and snake fangs, every creature depends on a weapon. But some are armed to extremes that make no practical sense - whether it's bull elks with giant 40-pound antler racks or tiny rhinoceros beetles with horns bigger than their body. What explains giant tusks, horns and claws that can slow an animal down and even impair health and nutrition? Showcasing astonishing wildlife cinematography, Extreme Animal Weapons investigates the riddle of outsize weaponry and uncovers a bold new theory about what triggers an animal arms race. In creatures as varied as dung beetles and saber-toothed tigers, shrimp and elephants, the same hidden factors trigger the race and, once started, these arms races unfold in exactly the same pattern. In this enthralling special, NOVA cracks the secret biological code that underlies nature's battleground.
Drawing on original footage from National Geographic, Etched in Bone explores the impact of one notorious bone theft by a member of the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. Hundred of bones were stolen and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, until it became known to Arnhem elders in the late 1990s. The return of the sacred artefacts was called for, resulting in a tense standoff between indigenous tribespeople and the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian.
Stories of Waitara combines oral histories, state of the art animations and powerful dramatic re-enactments to bring to life the narratives of Te Ātiawa in their epic battle against the military might of the British Empire. Created and presented by award-winning journalist Mihingarangi Forbes NZ Wars: Stories of Waitara documents the epic battle for control over the fertile lands of Taranaki. Shared through the eyes of Te Atiawa descendants including Dr Ruakere Hond with insights from acclaimed historian Dr Vincent O'Malley this digital documentary project focuses on the beginning of the Taranaki wars which started in Waitara and raged across the region for over two decades. The Taranaki pa site of Pukerangiora holds a significant place in New Zealand's military history as a lasting symbol of Maori resistance and resilience. Pukerangiora is now the backdrop for the latest installment of RNZ's award-winning docu-series on the bloody birth of modern New Zealand.
Presents the history of the conflict between the Canadian government and the Kwakiutl Indians of the Northwest Pacific over the ritual of the Potlatch. Archival photographs and films, wax roll sound recordings, police reports, the original potlatch files, and correspondence of agents form the basis of the reconstruction of period events, while the film centres on a Potlatch given today by the Cranmer family of Alert Bay.
In the fifties, when the future Democratic Republic of Congo was still a Belgian colony, an entire generation of musicians fused traditional African tunes with Afro-Cuban music to create the electrifying Congolese rumba, a style that conquered the entire continent thanks to an infectious rhythm, captivating guitar sounds and smooth vocals.
Bones of the Buddha is a 2013 television documentary produced by Icon Films and commissioned by WNET/THIRTEEN and ARTE France for the National Geographic Channels. It concerns a controversial Buddhist reliquary from the Piprahwa Stupa in Uttar Pradesh, India. It was released in May, 2013, and was broadcast in July 2013 in the US on PBS as part of the Secrets of the Dead series.
This portait of life on the tea plantations is decidedly rosy – clearly, there are no exploited workers here. However, the film provides an intriguing overview of tea production – from the planting of tea seeds to the final shipping of the precious leaves across the globe.
Documentation of the encroachment of European settlers upon Native American lands and the violent reaction of the Indians in their struggle to survive.
Documentary about sub-Saharan immigration in Spain and Argentina focusing especially on the Senegalese community
Mother India is home to many castes, tribes and religions and one common factor that brings this diverse country all together is Jewelry. Come explore the deep history and culture of the jewelry of India dating back more than 5000 years. As we explore the history we also take you into Bangalore, India and talk to local Jewelry Stores and Jewelry Artisans as they share their stories and their family history of their involvement in jewelry going far back into their family ancestry.
The Happy Island looks at the work of the London Missionary Society on Gemo (now Hanudamua) Island in Port Moresby harbour, Papua New Guinea, which from 1937-1974 treated people who suffered from infectious diseases, mainly leprosy and tuberculosis. The film offers insight into the attitudes and practices of Christian missionaries of that time. Despite the colonial paternalism that underpins the Missionary Society’s model of care, the film tells the story of a happy, active community, as it follows the lives of the patients, their families and the dedicated staff, all of whom live, work and socialise on the island together.
Dedičstvo krásy a biedy
The story of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists' Mission (1841-1969) to the Khasi Hills in north-east India, written and presented by Welsh poet Nigel Jenkins.
Abu Kiffan is the name of a reef near Safaga in Egypt. In the film we are drowned in sound, time slows down and we are given a closer look at what’s going on. Part two of Holthuis’ series Careless Reef, four films about the world under water.
A documentary focusing on our relationship with the animal kingdom as seen through a group of people whose love of the hippopotamus binds them together.
Jaw-dropping pomp and pageantry at the 1911 Delhi Durbar
A visual journey into the personal life and battles of a group of acid attack survivors in Delhi and suburbs against stigmas and prejudices in the Indian society
At the heart of the South-East Asia, there are impenetrable forests. Outstanding Men kept it an ancestral know-how: the taming of the elephants. We call them Bunong – the original people of mountains. For centuries, Bunong considers the elephants as their brothers of the forest. Together, they worked miracles. Majestic quoted from Angkor was built thanks to the ingenuity of the men, allied to the physical strength of their elephants. They live in harmony in this world of forests where a brilliant multitude reigns over the fate of the men and the animals.
This film travels over open books, looted objects and postcards to look for the imperial foundations of the world in which we live. Within this wide landscape the film focuses on the destruction of the Jewish Muslim world that existed in North Africa, making it imaginable and inhabitable again. Narrated in the first person, by an Algerian Jew and a Palestinian Jew, the film refuses imperial histories of those places. Objects held captive in museums and archives outside of the places from where they were looted are only the visible tip of the iceberg of the mass colonial plunder of Africa. The film explores the substantial wealth accumulated through the extraction of raw materials, labour, knowledge and skills, including the “visual wealth” attained by putting people in front of the colonisers’ cameras.