Realm of the Alligator

Elogio da Graça

A young man and his young elephant street beg in gritty Bangkok amid the controversial elephant business that threatens their survival, until the opportunity comes to release the elephant to the wild.

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!!

Wind Riders tells the untold stories of three American balloon pilots who have dedicated their lives to their sport - a masterful hot-air balloonist, and a championship team in gas balloon racing as they defend their world title.

Five times, Earth has faced apocalyptic events that swept nearly all life from the face of the planet. What did these prehistoric creatures look like? What catastrophes caused their disappearance? And how did our distant ancestors survive and give rise to the world we know today?

WILD MADAGASCAR spotlights the many strange and unique species of Madagascar and the impact that one species, the lemur, has had on the island's culture.

A routine drone survey turns deadly when Ryan Johnson, a marine biologist based in South Africa, films a humpback whale being attacked and strategically drowned by a Great white shark. This is a total perspective shift for the creature.

A look into the lives of eagles.

A look into the lives of kingfishers.

Naturalists Charlie Russell and Maureen Enns film recently discovered grizzlies on Siberia's Kamchatka peninsula.

Rocks, dunes, sand and dust - large areas of Namibia in southwest Africa are characterized by deserts. Riverbeds full of sand meander through these inhospitable regions. Some of these only have water once every few years when enough rain has fallen in the mountains and the water rushes to the coast - but most of the time the river courses have dried up. And yet they are crucial for the survival of many living beings.

A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolse

Super powers exist. Right here on Earth. And they are beneath our feet. They include beetles that shoot chemical fire and lift enormous weights; scorpions that glow in the dark with astonishing crushing powers; spiders that can make themselves virtually invisible and hypnotise their prey; even a bug that can transform itself into another creature entirely. Prepare to be amazed in this 3D giant screen adventure, with narration from the likes of world renowned naturalist David Attenborough, which explores the hidden world of the super-powered bugs.

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.

Scientists have discovered and investigate the reason behind the behavior of sharks swimming around in gangs even though they are viewed as solitary predators.

'Guadalquivir' is a feature length documentary directed by Joaquín Gutiérrez that features a fox, an animal that has adapted, living in packs and alone and that is a carnivore, vegetarian and even carrion. The camera follows the path of the fox by the Sierras de Cazorla, Segura and Las Villas.

Along the coast of British Columbia lies an enchanted wilderness, where bear-hunting wolves take to the sea and grizzlies clash in titanic battles. In this magical, yet forbidding place, wildlife coexists and behaves as nowhere else on earth. As this precious arc of habitat faces an uncertain future, threatened by chainsaws and fish farms, a team of dedicated scientists are racing to prove that it must be protected. National Geographic joins these experts on a 250-mile adventure through remote and unexplored territory, battling nature's most brutal elements and witnessing its breathtaking best. The scientists form a wilderness detective squad, collecting clues that will decipher the secret life of the forest's elusive inhabitants and perhaps even reveal a glimpse of the rare white spirit bear in Great Bear Rainforest.

Deep within the dense jungle of the Congo Basin, people are bringing the once-deserted village of Lossi back to life. In the spirit of Jane Goodall's work with chimps, Explorer joins primatologist Magdalena Bermejo as she conducts groundbreaking research of the western lowland gorilla in its natural environment. Skilled local trackers help Bermejo and Illera look for clues in crushed leaves, half-eaten plant stems, and dung. The team is finally rewarded in an area less than two miles outside of Lossi, surrounded with ancestral eyes peering from the forest. Bermejo focuses her study on a magnificent 350-pound male she names Apollo and his family. Journey with Explorer into the heart of equatorial Africa to sit amidst swarms of sweat bees and stinging ants that would try the patience of the most dedicated biologists for an intimate view of a noble silverback and his tribe.

This is a powerful documentary, filmed over a 16 year span, about the rise of a Coalition of six lions, branded The Mapogo Lions, and their takeover of the largest territory by a pride.

16-year-old Bella and Vipulan are part of a generation convinced its very future is in danger. Between climate change and the 6th mass extinction of wildlife, their world could well be inhabitable 50 years from now. They have sounded the alarm over and over, but nothing has really changed. So they’ve decided to tackle the root of the problem: our relationship with the living world. Over the course of an extraordinary journey, they come to realize just how deeply humans are tied to all other living species. And that by saving them… we’re also saving ourselves. Humans thought they could distance themselves from nature, but humans are part and parcel of nature. For man is, after all, an Animal.