Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly is a 56-minute narrated film that unfolds along the shores of Cape Ann and in the heart of Mexico’s forested volcanic mountains. Every stage of the butterfly’s life cycle is experienced in vibrant close-up, from mating to egg to caterpillar to adult, and set against the backdrop of sea and forest, sun and wind.
Bright Green Lies investigates the change in focus of the mainstream environmental movement, from its original concern with protecting nature, to its current obsession with powering an unsustainable way of life. The film exposes the lies behind the notion that solar, wind, hydro, biomass, or green consumerism will save the planet. Tackling the most pressing issues of our time will require us to look beyond the mainstream technological solutions and ask deeper questions about what needs to change.
During the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, a woman floats in waters far from home. When everything seems calm, a wave hits and carries her to the depths of her being. Water and Salt is a journey through the consciousness of someone whose country is under threat from a fascist government.
The Oxbow Watermen Experience
Filmmakers Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey chronicle a year in the lives of an Alaskan brown bear named Sky and her cubs, Scout and Amber. Their saga begins as the bears emerge from hibernation at the end of winter. As time passes, the bear family must work together to find food and stay safe from other predators, especially other bears. Although their world is exciting, it is also risky, and the cubs' survival hinges on family togetherness.
This documentary combines archaeological and geological evidence with tales passed down through generations, uncovering a dramatic history of cannibals, vast stone cities, human sacrifice, and the epic voyagers who colonised the Pacific centuries before Columbus made it to America.
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.
Renowned photo-based artist Chris Jordan’s feature debut focuses on the albatrosses who inhabit the remote Midway Atoll island, nesting amidst machinery abandoned after World War II.
Riding Giants is story about big wave surfers who have become heroes and legends in their sport. Directed by the skateboard guru Stacy Peralta.
THE LONELIEST WHALE is a cinematic quest to find the “52 Hertz Whale,” which scientists believe has spent its entire life in solitude calling out at a frequency that is different from any other whale. As the film embarks on this engrossing journey, audiences will explore what this whale’s lonely plight can teach us — not just about our changing relationship to the oceans, but to each other. Executive Produced with Leonardo DiCaprio and Adrian Grenier.
The globe learned on December 26, 2004, that tsunamis can bring death and devastation to the world's coastlines. The product of undersea earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, tsunamis can race across oceans at more than 500 miles an hour, leaving a huge wake of destruction when they hit shore. Because it is difficult for scientists to predict how large these massive waves can be, tsunamis are one of the least understood of nature's forces, and one of the most dangerous. With insight from some of the scientific community's foremost researchers, and vivid accounts from past tsunami survivors, Tsunami: Killer Wave depicts nature at its most extreme, profiles the efforts being made to curb its effects, and illustrates the financial, physical and emotional toll it can leave on its victims.
“El Río” aims to illustrate the unique relationship between the indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon and their land. By drawing attention to and discussing the differences between western ideologies and those found in the Amazon, the documentary increases awareness of the emotional and spiritual effects of environmental resource depletion.
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!!
At first glance, it's just like other European plains. Once the wind and rivers worked on it, today it bears the signs of human activity. The Hungarian Puszta is different nonetheless: it lives a secret life where always happens something. Big birds hustle and push each other, the traffic of the white, salty lakes competes that of major airports, antlers clash like swords, and an owl claps on all this. The most peculiar creature is the protagonist itself. The golden jackal once lived here, but it vanished for decades because of constant persecution. But this four-legged predator, defying the danger, has returned and founded a family. The new pack howls in the frosty night: "This is our land!"
The crushing jaws of hyenas may act as a kind of nutrient blender, grinding out calcium and phosphorous from bones and dumping them back into the relatively poor soil of the Kalahari Desert.
Galapagos Suite is a 17-minute compilation of 16 days sailing around the Galapagos archipelago aboard the Anahi catamaran. It seeks to encapsulate and capture the experience with intimate videography by Jim Lawrence and an original music score by Christian Jessup.
The culture of Japan is incredible, from bloom festivals to ultra-modern cities. But there are also more than 130 mammals and 600 bird species dwelling in Japan’s 6,852 islands. This island chain is long enough to span climate zones, providing a huge range of habitat.
Host Peter Greenberg explores the hidden gems of Turkey's Aegean coast. Some of the stunning destinations include Bodrum, Izmir and the ancient city of Troy.
This is the story of a vegetable garden, from the first seeds to the harvest. But this garden is different, because here the gardener has decided to banish pesticides and other chemicals, and to be helped only by discreet workers, the insects. As we dive into the heart of this plant kingdom, we discover thousands of tiny lives that organize themselves as in a micro-society: decomposing insects, recyclers, pollinators, the workers of the garden work to maintain a fragile balance within the vegetable garden. As the plants grow and begin to produce their first vegetables, the incredible interactions between insects and plants help protect the future harvest. But it is also their personal stories that punctuate the life of the garden. Between parades, mutual aid and attempted putsch, the story of the vegetable garden thus takes the form of a true nature tale.
Otters are so proficient at capturing the fish they live on, that they have lots of time left over for play. And they seem to play with reckless abandon, sliding down steep canyons in deep snow, swimming under the ice in Yellowstone Lake. They submerge us into the lake to find strange underwater spires only recently discovered by man. Other creatures sometimes survive bitter winter seasons by stealing fish from the otter. Actually, they're pretty good at defending themselves, and this program catches some astonishing action between them, coyotes, eagles, beaver, even an occasional grizzly bear.