Spotlight on the Highlands (1948)

Cutting Corners

With building collapses happening around the country, activists band together to confront the real estate developers and hold them accountable for the construction destruction, lives they have destroyed, and deaths they have caused.

Manufactured Landscapes

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.

The A350: Star of the Skies

After 10 years of tests and 12 billion Euros invested, the state-of-the-art Airbus jet completed its first commercial flight in January 2015. We will discover how it was conceived and built, and explore its technological innovations every step of the way.

Inquiry: The Great British Housing Disaster

David Jones investigates how 1960s council housing came to be built so poorly that thousands later needed to be demolished.

Spitfire: The Birth of a Legend

‘Spitfire— Birth of a Legend‘ tells the story of the Spitfire from a radical design on the drawing board to the fighter aircraft that became the symbol of Britain’s determination to fight on to victory. It celebrates the history of this acclaimed aircraft, the men who designed and built it, and those who flew and fought in it. The story, along with dramatic archive and colour film of aerial combat, graphically illustrates the appeal and fascination the Spitfire has maintained since it faced and fought the fighter and bomber formations of the Luftwaffe.

Guy Martin: The World's Fastest Electric Car?

Join self confessed petrol-head Guy Martin as he learns about the alternative to the internal combustion engine, Electric. In this TV special, Guy learns about the advantages of electric transport and the different varieties that exist from bicycles, cars and vans up to buses. Guy also learns some of the disadvantages from range anxiety and with the help of the Leicestershire Fire Brigade, how to deal with a fire. The ultimate aim is to produce a record breaking electrified retro road car that is suitable for the Drag strip, with Guy behind the steering wheel.

The Cost of Cobalt

In the cobalt mining areas of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), babies are being born with horrific birth defects. Scientists and doctors are finding increasing evidence of environmental pollution from industrial mining which, they believe, may be the cause of a range of malformations from cleft palate to some so serious the baby is stillborn. More than 60% of the world’s reserves of cobalt are in the DRC and this mineral is essential for the production of electric car batteries, which may be the key to reducing carbon emissions and to slowing climate change. In The Cost of Cobalt we meet the doctors treating the children affected and the scientists who are measuring the pollution. Cobalt may be part of the global solution to climate change, but is it right that Congo’s next generation pay the price with their health? Many are hoping that the more the world understands their plight, the more pressure will be put on the industry here to clean up its act.

Mach 2

The Concorde remains a legend of the sky. In both looks and performance, it was incomparable, and the technology behind it was nothing less than revolutionary. Learn all about this magnificent craft that was able to fly at over 1300 mph, linking Paris and London to New York in under 4 hours. A unique flying machine, it remains the only supersonic commercial aircraft in the history of aviation.

Cosmic Dawn

For over three decades, NASA and an international team of scientists and engineers pushed the limits of technology, innovation, and perseverance to build and launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful space observatory ever created. Cosmic Dawn brings audiences behind the scenes with the Webb film crew, and never-before-heard testimonies revealing the real story of how this telescope overcame all odds.

People and the Nile

The construction of the Aswan dam as seen by those who took part in it: engineers, workers, Egyptians, and Soviets.

Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks

A detailed look at the gradual decline of Shenyang’s industrial Tiexi district, an area that was once a vibrant example of China’s socialist economy. But industry is changing, and the factories of Tiexi are closing. Director Wang Bing introduces us to some of the workers affected by the closures, and to their families.

Rhapsody of Steel

Animated industrial movie about the steel industry.

Shipyard

Documentary about the building of ships at Barrow-in-Furness.

Silver Memories

Heralded as a palace among minor and major league baseball stadiums, Silver Stadium set a standard of excellence from opening day. From May 1929 through the 1990s Silver Stadium served as home to Rochester's historic baseball team, The Rochester Red Wings, as well as many other sporting teams. When not being used as a baseball stadium, the space served as center stage for a variety of traveling acts. Hear from the people closest to the history of this magnificent facility as they take you on a journey through The Memories of Silver.

Framing John DeLorean

A documentary interspersed with acted scenes, this portrait of John DeLorean covers the brilliant but tragically flawed automaker's rise to stardom and shocking down fall.

Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine

A unique behind-the-scenes access to NASA’s ambitious mission to launch the James Webb Space Telescope, following a team of engineers and scientists as they take the next giant leap in our quest to understand the universe.

That's the Price

What happens to two dying coal towns in British Columbia when an American corporation provides a contract for millions of tons of coking coal? The film follows the consequences for the towns of Natal and Michel, suggesting that industrial growth has its price, especially with regard to the environment.

Artifishal

Narratives of ecologists and conservationists are pitted against the human tendency to engineer and control in this probing documentary on the lucrative salmon-hatchery industry.

SEVEN

What caused Building 7 to collapse on 9/11? Dr. Leroy Hulsey from the University of Alaska Fairbanks may have the answer, following an exhausting four year engineering study.

Skint: The Truth About Britain's Broken Economy

Britain feels under-funded and falling apart. On the eve of the election, as politicians debate the causes, economist Tim Harford looks at what the numbers reveal about the broken state we're in.

Steeltown

A portrait of Hamilton, the Pittsburgh or Birmingham of Canada. This is a rich and colourful subject that encourages imaginative treatment on the screen. The heart of the city is the immense complex of furnaces and rolling mills, but nearby are the lake, the mountain, and the rich fruit farms. How the work of the steel mills touches the city and its surroundings is shown in many views during both day and night.

Passfire

A film about fireworks, the people who make them and the cultures behind them across the globe.

Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams

Documentary presented by Professor Simon Schaffer which charts the amazing and untold story of automata - extraordinary clockwork machines designed hundreds of years ago to mimic and recreate life. The film brings the past to life in vivid detail as we see how and why these masterpieces were built. Travelling around Europe, Simon uncovers the history of these machines and shows us some of the most spectacular examples, from an entire working automaton city to a small boy who can be programmed to write and even a device that can play chess. All the machines Simon visits show a level of technical sophistication and ambition that still amazes today.

The Autobiography of a 'Jeep'

The invention and use of a jeep are described, from the viewpoint of one of the vehicles.

Seawards the Great Ships

Documentary about shipbuilding on the Clyde. In 1960, Glasgow and other towns and ports on the River Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland, were still one of the world's great centres of shipbuilding. The film gives an idea of the business of building a ship - the largest moving thing made by man - from the naval architects who design her to the workmen, the shipbuilders in the yard, through to a ship's launching.

Conquest of Light

Examines the mesmerising construction of clear crystal glass pieces created by the craftsmen of Waterford. The process from the intense heat of the furnace to glass blowing, shaping, cutting, honing, filling and finishing is all depicted in this celebration of the art of creation of Waterford Glass. Academy Award Nominee: Best Live Action Short - 1976.

Trains: Two Centuries of Innovation

Nearly 200 years ago, the train revolutionized our lives. It redrew the maps of states and nations, and changed concepts of distance and time like no other invention before. What visionaries imagined the development of the railroad? How did we get from the first chugging locomotives to the smooth giants of speed we see today? How does France's extensive rail network keep running smoothly, 24/7?

La saga du rail

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TGV, la réussite française

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Built for Mars: The Perseverance Rover

BUILT FOR MARS: THE PERSEVERANCE ROVER goes behind the scenes at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to follow the birth of the Perseverance rover.

Flying : le rêve de Franky Zapata

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Amazing Engineering: Knights Templar Castles

Looks at the engineering of the Knights Templar, the religious order that marked the rise of the Middle Ages, and their amazing buildings in the west of Europe.

Reconstruction of Hill Street Birmingham

An engineering feat: Second city civil engineers complete a new bridge to carry traffic over New Street's tangled railway intersections.

I Want to Be an Engineer

This film provides a lively introduction to the professional and personal lives of three female engineers-just a few of the growing number of women who were opting for "non-traditional" jobs in1983.

A Century of Energy

Manoel de Oliveira's final work revisits one of his earliest films and celebrates a century of industrialization in Portugal.

Supersonic: The Great Adventure

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Rosies of the North

They raised children, baked cakes... and built world-class fighter planes. Sixty years ago, thousands of women from Thunder Bay and the Prairies donned trousers, packed lunch pails and took up rivet guns to participate in the greatest industrial war effort in Canadian history. Like many other factories across the country from 1939 to 1945, the shop floor at Fort William's Canadian Car and Foundry was transformed from an all-male workforce to one with forty percent female workers.

Japan: Hightech against earthquake

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Why Plastic: Coca Cola/American Plastic

Whales beached after ingesting plastic, oceans soiled: a quarter of marine waste today comes from cans and plastic bottles. The drinks industry produces 470 billion single-use bottles each year, 25% of which come from Coca-Cola. Although the world's largest soft drink producer has set ambitious targets to prevent this environmental pollution, it has often failed to do so. In the 1950s, the company sold its drink exclusively in returnable glass bottles, which it washed and refilled. Two decades later, these were replaced by disposable bottles - a decision whose devastating effects still linger.