In April 2013, chaos erupted in Boston near the finish line of one of the world's oldest and most prestigious marathons. It was the worst terrorist attack on the United States since 9/11 and led to one of the most extensive and public manhunts in American history. Now, as the one-year anniversary approaches, National Geographic Channel presents a special two-hour event, Inside the Hunt for the Boston Bombers.
The history of the Boston Marathon from its humble origins starting with only 15 runners, to the first female runners, through the tragedy in 2013, and ultimately the triumph of 2014.
Immediately after the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013, amateur detectives took the Internet chat rooms to try to find the culprits, looking for details in photographs uploaded to the sites that could point to the guilt of potential suspects.
A retrospective on the Boston bombing.
This Canadian made comedy/drama, set in Hamilton, Ontario in 1954, is a sweet and - at times - goofy story that becomes increasingly poignant as the minutes tick by. It's the fictional tale of a wayward 9th grader, Ralph (Adam Butcher), who is secretly living on his own while his widowed, hospitalized mother remains immersed in a coma. Frequently in trouble with Father Fitzpatrick (Gordon Pinsent), the principal of his all-boys, Catholic school, Ralph is considered something of a joke among peers until he decides to pull off a miracle that could save his mother, i.e., winning the Boston Marathon. Coached by a younger priest and former runner, Father Hibbert (Campbell Scott), whose cynicism has been lifted by the boy's pure hope, Ralph applies himself to his unlikely mission, fending off naysayers and getting help along a very challenging path from sundry allies and friends.
A rousing tale of the Korean athletes who ran the 1947 Boston International Marathon, the first international marathon held since World War II.
In the aftermath of an unspeakable act of terror, Police Sergeant Tommy Saunders joins courageous survivors, first responders and investigators in a race against the clock to hunt down the Boston Marathon bombers before they strike again.
A victim of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 helps the police track down the killers while struggling to recover from devastating trauma.
A fictional film about a runner's relationship with his sister and brother as he tries to qualify for Boston.
A documentary of the German national soccer team’s 2006 World Cup experience that changed the face of modern Germany.
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 American comedian/actor delivers a story about the alternative Hip Hop scene. A small town Ohio mans moves to Brooklyn, New York, to throw an unprecedented block party.
The first documentary by Wojciech Staroń. He just finished film school, his wife Małgosia just became a teacher. The year is 1997. They decide to go for a year deep into Siberia: she’ll teach Polish, he’ll shoot a film. And this is that beautiful film, narrated in the first person by Małgosia as she meets all sorts of colorful characters and reflects upon reality with her beautiful, monotone voice, seeing the good in people individually and collectively. This is also about her transformation in this travel undertaken in the centuries-old fashion of the observer who, by observing others, observes herself.
In 1998 Wojciech Staroń made the documentary film "The Siberian Lesson". The film told the story of a young teacher who emigrated to the vicinity of Lake Baikal in order to teach Polish deportees’ descendants their native language. Many years later, as a married couple with two children, the director and his wife are leaving for Argentina. For their little son, this trip will not only be an encounter with an unknown language. Influenced by their Argentinian friend, Janek enters the fascinating world of imagination, and is introduced to the bitterness of childhood prematurely contaminated by the problems of grown-ups.
Joplin native Chip Gubera's documentary JOPLIN MISSOURI: A TORNADO STORY is a comprehensive, informative account of the devastation wrought on his hometown by a natural disaster and its subsequent recovery. On May 21, 2011 the deadliest tornado ever recorded struck Joplin, an F5 in which wind gusts exceeded 200 mph. In fact, it was not a single tornado, but a multi-vortex tornado created by two converging storms. As local meteorologist Jeremiah Cook explained, this meant that the half mile wide tornado had several "fingers," each an individual tornado, and the rains were so heavy one could not see them before they struck. Narrator George Noory's jovial voice and the monotone recollections of survivors belie the overwhelming scope of the devastation.
Filmmaker Robert May chronicles the case of a once-respected judge who received kickbacks for sending juvenile offenders to prison, even for minor crimes.
It is late autumn and the Eskimos travel through soft snow and build karmaks, shelters with snow walls and a roof of skins, in the river valley. The geese are gone but some musk-ox are seen. The man makes a toy sleigh from the jawbones of a caribou and hitches it to a puppy. Next day the women gather stocks of moss for the lamp and the fire. The men fish through the ice with spears. The woman cooks fish while the men cache the surplus. Then the family eats in the karmak. The men build an igloo and the household goods are moved in. They begin the complicated task of making a sleigh, using the skins from the tent, frozen fish, caribou antlers and sealskin thong. The woman works at a parka, using more caribou skin, and the children play. Now the sled is ready to load and soon the family is heading downriver to the coast.
The time is early autumn. The woman wakes and dresses the boy. He practices with his sling while she spreads a caribou skin to dry. The boy picks berries and then the men come in their kayak with another caribou. This is skinned, and soon night falls. In the morning, one man leaves with his bow while the other makes a fishing mannick, a bait of caribou meat. The woman works at the skins, this time cleaning sinews and hanging them to dry. The man repairs his arrows and then sets a snare for a gull. The child stones the snared gull and then plays hunter, using some antlers for a target. His father makes him a spinning top. Two men arrive at the camp and the four build from stones a long row of manlike figures, inukshult, down toward the water. They wait for caribou and then chase them toward the stone figures and so into the water where other men in kayaks spear them. The dead animals are floated ashore and skinned.
Two Eskimo families travel across the wide sea ice. Before night falls they build small igloos and we see the construction in detail. The next day a polar bear is seen basking in the warming sun. A woman lights her seal oil lamp, carefully forming the wick from moss. The man repairs his snow goggles. Another man arrives dragging a polar bear skin. The boy has made a bear-shaped figure from snow and practices throwing his spear. Then he tries his bow. Now, with her teeth, the woman crimps the sole of a sealskin boot she is making. The men are hunting seal through the sea-ice in the bleak windy weather. The wind disturbs the "tell-tales," made of eider down or a hair loop on a bone, that signal when a seal rises to breathe. A hunter strikes, kills and drags his catch up and away. At the igloo the woman scrapes at a polar bear skin and a man repairs a sled. In the warming weather the igloo is topped with furs and a snow shelter is built to hide the sled from the sun.
In late winter when the cold is severe, the people and dogs are glad to stop their trek and make camp. In the blue dusk the men probe the snow and then cut building blocks while the women shovel a site. Soon all are under cover, and in the wavering light of the stone lamp they sleep, their breath rising coldly. In the light of day the men test and refurbish their spears, harness dogs to the sled and strike out on the sea ice. Each man, with a dog or two, explores the white waste, seeking scent of a seal's breathing hole. When a dog noses the snow, the man probes for the hole and, when he finds it, suspends a single looped hair to signal when the seal rises to breathe. Then he waits, motionless, to make his strike. He kills, and the others gather to taste the warm liver of his catch. Then, as night comes, the vigil goes on.