Jane Goodall: Reasons for Hope (2023)

The Return of Nóouhàh-Toka’na

Nóouhàh-Toka’na, known as swift fox in English, once roamed the North American Great Plains from Canada to Texas. Like bison, pronghorn and other plains animals, Nóouhàh-Toka’na held cultural significance for the Native Americans who lived alongside them. But predator control programs in the mid-1900s reduced the foxes to just 10 percent of their native range. At the Fort Belknap Indian Community in Montana, members of the Aaniiih and Nakoda tribes are working with the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute and other conservation partners to restore biodiversity and return Nóouhàh-Toka’na to the land.

Snow Animals

Liz Bonnin introduces a cast of charismatic animals to reveal the remarkable strategies they use to survive, and even thrive, through the winter.

Most Wanted Sharks

Whether it's the biggest great white, the most photographed tiger shark, or the shark known for jumping 100 feet up out of the water, we're diving into the stories of the greatest shark stars of all time.

"An Untitled Film" by George Alshevskij-Jones

“An Untitled Film” by George Alshevskij-Jones is a short documentary/visual essay about the struggles of moving to seek a better future in a different country. The research for the film was done by observing and talking to people who have left their home country. It doesn’t matter what country a person has left and in which country he has found himself, the general experiences and emotions stay the same. The most important message that I want the film to convey is that everything is possible and home is not a place on a map, but a place in the soul of each person that I spoke to. The unconventional way of showing many people as one is not just a way of making the film more convenient to create, but a way to fit a much information into one consistent image, that the audience is more likely to understand and perceive as the author intended it. My own experience blended in with the experiences of others.

Watch Out for Orcas! Danger Off Gibraltar?

Since the summer of 2020, boats along the Atlantic coast from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Bay of Biscay in the north have been repeatedly attacked by orcas. The whales purposefully attack the rudders and destroy them. Researchers are trying to find out what drives them. Curiosity? Competition for food? Or play?

Imagine… Pet Shop Boys: Then and Now

Featuring exclusive access to their recent tour and their new album, this documentary reveals the fascinating world of Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe.

Shutter Shooter

Etienne-Jules Marey, a French inventor who turned a gun into a camera. A hand-drawn hunter whose weapon, instead of firing ammunition, shoots photographs. Carlos, a Mexican wildlife photographer who used to be a real life hunter until he chose to get rid of all his guns. All come together in this poetic yet approachable animated documentary short film.

Reef Builders

"Reef Builders" tells the true stories of people involved in the Sheba Hope Grows program, leading major restorations to save the world’s coral reefs in the face of climate change.

Googoosh: Made of Fire

On stage since she was a toddler, Googoosh has been an icon of Iranian pop culture since the 1970s. Her progressive style and raw singing talent attracted worldwide acclaim and saw her performing alongside the likes of Tina Turner and Ray Charles. But the star's career came to an abrupt halt after the Islamic Revolution, which banned women from singing in public. Googoosh was placed under house arrest, where she remained for the next two decades. Niloufar Taghizadeh's documentary, which includes interviews with the charismatic singer (now in her seventies, but still performing and advocating for women and girls) and arresting archival footage, offers both a loving portrait of a national icon and a fascinating historical and cultural record of Iran.

Big Cat Games

From extreme speed to bone crushing bites, big cats are some of the most impressive predators on the planet. Each of them is an incredible animal, with its own unique and special set of skills. In Big Cat Games, we will challenge ferocious felines against each other in a series of trials that will determine once and for all who is king of the cats. In the wild they are confident, dominant, and fearless—but they have never had to face anything like this before. Lions, cheetahs and tigers will be pushed to the limits of their natural athletic abilities

Heaven Can't Wait

The moving story of Carlo Acutis, a young British-Italian amateur computer programmer who died in 2006, aged 15, as a result of leukemia. However, even though he is no longer here, to this day Carlo continues to be a great symbol of strength among young people. The documentary brings together a series of reports from people who entrusted themselves to the intercession of the boy, beatified by the Catholic Church in 2020, and had their lives transformed.

Koi

There's no definitive separation as long as there is memory'. Since the Tsunami hit the northern part of Japan's coast in 2011, more than 20 thousand people lost their lives, and many others are still missing. As time went by the families of the victims abandoned all hope and stopped looking for their loved ones. However, this is the story of two men that are still fully committed to their respective searching activities. Even though their backgrounds are extremely different, both share a strong force of will and firmly wish to keep alive the memories of the ones that went missing. Perseverance is what pushed an ex-convict to look for redemption by helping the victims' families to find the remains of their loved ones, and perseverance is what brought a bus driver to start to dive in order to search for his wife.

Cephalopods: The Reign of Suckers

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Liza Minnelli, la dernière héritière d'Hollywood

Singer, dancer, and actress, Liza, daughter of Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland, with whom she had a close relationship, made a name for herself on Broadway and in Hollywood with her unique voice and flamboyant style. A sensitive portrait of the unforgettable Sally Bowles from Cabaret.

Après Demain

Two years after the phenomenal success of the documentary Demain, Cyril Dion looks back at the projects the film inspired. He is accompanied by Laure Noualhat, a renowned investigator and sceptic of the ability of micro-initiatives to have any real impact in the face of climate change. Their humorous confrontation pushes them to their limits: what works, what fails? What if all this forces us to invent a new narrative for humanity?

The Sanctuary: Survival Stories of the Alps

A dive inside a wild land where nature hides some of her greatest secrets: The Alps. Steep slopes, wind swept cutting edge rocks. An air desperately lacking of oxygen. A biting cold. How do living beings adapt to those extreme conditions?

Light in the Darkness

Suffering from blindness since childhood, Tatay Ening continues his life pursuits from climbing bamboo shoots to selling bamboo coin banks alone in a city, kilometers away from his home. His light to the darkness keeps him safe during unimaginable times.

Extinction: The Facts

With a million species at risk of extinction, Sir David Attenborough explores how this crisis of biodiversity has consequences for us all, threatening food and water security, undermining our ability to control our climate and even putting us at greater risk of pandemic diseases.

Shelter

At the Covenant House, located on the outskirts of the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana, the doors never close, and there is always room for one more. On any given day, a constant stream of young people carrying everything they own in plastic garbage bags fills the courtyard. The prospective residents are just teenagers, but have already been labeled drug addicts, schizophrenics, criminals and outcasts. As one staff member puts it, “the most damaged population of youth that exists in society today”. Filming over the course of a full year, brothers Brent and Craig Renaud tell the raw and emotional stories of the incredible kids who seek shelter at the Covenant House, and the staff struggling to work miracles everyday on their behalf.

The Elephant Queen

Embark on an epic journey of family, courage, and coming home in this feature-length documentary. Join Athena, the majestic matriarch, as she leads her elephant herd across an unforgiving African landscape filled with vibrant wildlife.

How dogs conquered the world

Zoo-archeologists, biologists, ethologists and geneticists are leading the investigation. For one thing is certain, the dog is still far from revealing all its secrets.

Surviving Paradise: A Family Tale

In this wildlife drama, a worsening dry season in the Kalahari Desert leaves prides, packs and herds to rely on the power of family to survive.

River of Gold

Narrated by Academy Award winners Sissy Spacek and Herbie Hancock, River of Gold is the disturbing account of a clandestine journey into Peru's Amazon rainforest to uncover the savage unraveling of pristine jungle. What will be the fate of this critical region of priceless biodiversity as these extraordinarily beautiful forests are turned into a hellish wasteland?

Radio Kobanî

The extraordinary story of a young reporter in war-torn Kobanî.

The Cat: A Cuddly Killer

Cats are cuddly felines and lovely pets, but also highly evolved predators that hunt huge amounts of small mammals, birds and reptiles; perfect killing machines that threaten delicate ecosystems around the world.

Traquer l'invisible - Nos chercheurs face à la menace mondiale des virus et des bactéries

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Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet

David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockström examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted.

The Year Earth Changed

Never-before-seen footage shows how our living in lockdown opened the door for nature to bounce back and thrive. Across the seas, skies, and lands, Earth found its rhythm when we came to a stop.

Tehachapi

French visual artist-director JR situates his latest social-art intervention in a Southern Californian supermax prison, where he has imagined an enormously ambitious collaboration with the facility’s inmates.

Einsame Atolle, unbekannte Tiefen

The endless expanses of the Indian Ocean are home to the last natural paradises: Remote atolls surrounded by coral reefs in crystal clear water. Whole regions of this ocean are still unexplored, many reefs are not marked on any map. The departure of the research vessel Agulhas II from the island of La Réunion marks the beginning of one of the greatest scientific adventures of our time. The expedition, initiated by Monaco Explorations with the support of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, lasted six weeks and led into the Western Indian Ocean along the Mascarene Plateau.

Jiyana Rewsenbireki Kurd: Casimê Celîl

Casimê Celîl was born into a Yezidi Kurdish family in 1908, in a village called Kızılkule, located in Digor, Kars. The village and family life, which he longed to remember throughout his life, ends with the massacre they endured in 1918. During his long road to Erivan, Armenia, he lost all his family members. Left all alone, Casim was placed into an orphanage and was forced to change his name. To remember who he was and where he came from, every morning he repeated the mantra “Navê min Casim e, Ez kurê Celîlim, Ez ji gundê Qizilquleyê Dîgorê me, Ez Kurdim, Kurdê Êzîdî me”, which translates to: “My name is Casim, I am the son of Celîl, I come from the village of Kızılkule in Digor, I am a Kurd, and I am Yezidi”. He clings to every piece of his culture he can find, reads, and saves whatever Kurdish literature or art he comes across. As the year’s pass, Casim finds himself with an impressive collection of Kurdish culture and history.

Bora Bora, le laboratoire du futur

Bora Bora is the most popular destination in French Polynesia, certainly because of its lagoon, considered the most beautiful lagoon in the world. In this context, the islet could have sunk under concrete and pollution, and the reef could have been irreparably impacted. However, thanks to the will of a handful of inhabitants including the mayor of the island, Bora Bora is today a model of sustainable development, with water treatment technologies that are 15 years ahead of France, programs to rebuild corals and protect wildlife, educational actions and the rehabilitation of Polynesian traditions such as “rahui” and the establishment of a monitoring network using new technologies. All of this makes the island a veritable open-air laboratory that shows the way for all tropical coastal environments around the world.

Growing Up Wild

Life is an adventure - especially for a newborn animal who has so much to learn. "Growing Up Wild" takes audiences to the wildest corners of the planet to tell the tales of five courageous animals as they tackle the very first challenges of their young lives. With a little guidance from sage family members, each must figure out how and where to find food, while learning to recognize the very real threat of danger. From their first steps of exploring their world to their final steps into independence, "Growing Up Wild" reveals the triumphs and setbacks of five young lives in which instinct, parental lessons, and trial & error ultimately define their destinies. Featuring the stunning imagery and iconic storytelling that makes Disneynature's big-screen adventures an inspiring movie-going experience, "Growing Up Wild", brings home a special look at how similar and different these young lives can be. - Written by (C) 2016 Disney Enterprises

Silverback

Feature-length documentary following award-winning wildlife cameraman Vianet Djenguet as he documents a gruelling but vital mission to ‘habituate’ a notoriously protective 450lb silverback, in a last-ditch effort to save the critically endangered eastern lowland gorillas from extinction.

Wie Tiere fühlen

Do animals have feelings? Empathy even? A documentary with some insights due to advancing technology.

Yellowstone: The Mystery of the Wolves

70 years after the last wolves roamed the national park, a total of 41 wolves were reintroduced between 1995 and 1997. A globally unique experiment that had many supporters, but also resolute opponents, then as now.

Planet of the Birds

From the North Pole to remote islands, birds can live almost anywhere. How do these resilient animals thrive in such different environments? They have become hardy and versatile through their bodies, feathers, movements, and songs. In this global birding tour, we learn about these nomads of the sky.

The Magical World of Moss

They have no roots, no seeds, no flowers, but mosses show immense survival capacities and can suspend their biological activity for long periods. Today, researchers are exploring the exceptional resistance of these archaic organisms. British ecologists have even resurrected a "zombie" moss that has been trapped in the permafrost for 1,500 years. Associated with decay and disliked in Europe, mosses are deified in Japan. With 25,000 species worldwide, bryophytes - their scientific name - are the seat of real ecosystems, and can develop in inhospitable landscapes, through an extravagant reproduction cycle.

Call Me Kate

A feature documentary which captures Katharine Hepburn's spirit and determination, exploring her story using her own words, through a combination of hours of previously hidden and intimate audio tapes, video and photographic archive.

Dompter son dragon

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Anthropocène, l’implacable enquête

For several decades, geoscientists have been observing that the Earth is changing rapidly due to human intervention. This action has such a great impact on the biological, geological and atmospheric processes of the Earth that some scientists speak of the dawn of a new epoch: the Age of Man or the Anthropocene.

Landfall

Hurricane María abated, the news crews packed up and left Puerto Rico, and the interest of the international community turned elsewhere. What happened next?

The Boy of The Fish

"The Boy Of The Fish" follows Noon, a young boy living in a Syrian refugee camp, who finds solace and a sense of freedom in a whale-shaped doll he names "Bahr." Set against the challenging realities of camp life, Noon’s journey is both a story of resilience and a testament to the boundless imagination of childhood. Through vivid symbolism and a unique soundscape, the film explores themes of loss, hope, and the longing for freedom amidst confinement. Shot entirely on an iPhone due to restrictions in the conflict zone, the film combines raw authenticity with poetic depth to capture the emotional landscape of a young soul navigating adversity.

La banlieue, c’est le paradis

In the 1960s, the suburbs were meant to be modern havens for newcomers from rural France, Portugal, Spain, North Africa, and Africa, helping rebuild post-war France. Large housing complexes symbolized this ideal, offering comfort, heating, and electricity. But by the 1980s, disillusionment set in as economic crisis, unemployment, poverty, crime, racism, and police violence took hold. Mohamed Bouhafsi tells the story of a dream that didn’t last.

Mourning in Lod

MOURNING IN LOD, takes a microcosmic look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through Musa, Yigal, and Randa — three people whose fates become inextricably linked in a vicious cycle of violence. Lod/Lydd is a “mixed” city inhabited by Arabs and Jews who live side by side in a strained coexistence. In May 2021, two of these three people lost their lives and and one regained hers — thanks to an unlikely organ transplant. The outpouring of love, anger, forgiveness and sorrow that follows in their wake is a ray of light that offsets a collective state of mourning with no end in sight.

Wälder unserer Erde

The forest is like an organism, ancient and full of mechanisms. Its plants need water and are temperature-dependent. Nevertheless, it survives in a wide variety of locations around the world. How does it manage to adapt to even the most adverse conditions?

Les Premiers 1000 Jours

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Swimming with Legends

A biographical documentary about the Belgian free-diver Fred Buyle and his art of silent diving.

Oasen: Inseln des Lebens

Oases are more than fairytale places in the desert sand. Amidst the stony heights of the Andes, the endless expanse of the Pacific, or the hectic concrete sausages of Mumbai, islands of life flourish. In breathtaking shots, the documentary explores the phenomenon of oases – and the magical places in the Saharan sand are of course included.

I Named You in Silence

The Rastreadoras de El Fuerte are a group of mothers of disappeared persons in northern Sinaloa who, in the absence of the authorities, twice a week go out with picks and shovels in search of the remains of their children; a testimony of the abandonment of the State, the aggressions of the drug traffickers, the indifference of society and the pain, but also of the strength and courage that keep these women together, and of their empowerment to mobilize society in community organization.

The Octopus in My House

A professor develops an extraordinary relationship with an octopus when he invites it to live in his home. The octopus, called Heidi, unravels puzzles, recognises individual humans and even watches TV with the family. The episode also shows remarkable behaviour from around the world - from the day octopus, which can change colour and texture in a split second, to the coconut octopus, which carries around its own coconut shell to hide in. But most fascinating of all is seeing how Professor David Scheel and his daughter Laurel bond with an animal that has nine brains, three hearts and blue blood running through its veins.

Voyage dans les abysses

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Ultraviolette and the Blood-Spitters Gang

After the death of his grandmother Emma, Robin Hunzinger and his mother Claudie find a carefully preserved collection of letters which Emma received from a girl called Marcelle. In the 1920s, Emma and Marcelle met at school in Dijon. Secretly, love blossomed between the two teenage girls, but after two years they parted ways. Marcelle developed tuberculosis and was admitted to a sanatorium. Complementing the sparse photographs of the women, Hunzinger combines archive footage, avant-garde films, and music to create a sensuous, poetic atmosphere.