The secret of Alexandria (2024)

Deep Blue

Deep Blue is a major documentary feature film shot by the BBC Natural History Unit. An epic cinematic rollercoaster ride for all ages, Deep Blue uses amazing footage to tell us the story of our oceans and the life they support.

Alexandria: The Greatest City

Bettany Hughes goes in search of this lost civilisation, revealing the story of a city founded out of the desert by Alexander the Great in 331 BC to become the world's first global centre of culture. The documentary also looks at the role of astronomer and philosopher Hypatia, and incorporates stunning footage from the feature film 'Agora'.

PQ17: An Arctic Convoy Disaster

Jeremy Clarkson tells the dramatic story of the Arctic convoys of the Second World War, from Russia to the freezing Arctic Ocean.

Ballymanus

10 May 1943. Something is spotted drifting ashore off the coast of Northwest Donegal, Ireland. Something that would change the lives of the local people forever.

The True Story of the Mary Celeste

On December 4, 1872, the unmanned Mary Celeste was found adrift in the Atlantic with its cargo fully intact. The mystery of this "ghost ship" remained unanswered for over 135 years. What happened to the Mary Celeste is widely regarded as the most famous mystery of the sea. Watch it unfold to its stunning conclusion, at last.

Sea of Plastic

The Mediterranean sea is stifled by the growing amount of plastic waste and microplastics, endangering marine mammals, polluting beaches and jeopardizing local economies. How to get rid of this plague? Alexandra Cousteau, granddaughter of worldwide-known explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, starts a journey to meet the people who are devoting their life to the Mediterranean sea’s rescue. Some flashing lights sequences or patterns may affect photosensitive viewers.

Why Just One?

Saving the world's last dinosaur, the sea turtle.

Riding Giants

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 Dreamed Films

Belgian filmmaker Eric Pauwels' meditation on dream, travel and film.

The Seafarers

Members of the American Federation of Labor, the Atlantic & Gulf Coast District of the Seafarers International Union commissioned budding filmmaker and magazine photographer Stanley Kubrick to direct this half-hour documentary. The director's first film in color, it is more of an industrial film than a documentary, it served as a promotional tool to recruit sailors to the union.

Kapitäne

This documentary film portrays five captains. It shows their everyday life on board, and how they fulfill their duties and make decisions. But it goes far beyond: Viewers get to know the captains as people with values, as human beings that also deal with topics such as family and home. The captains' stories tell a lot more than about life at sea. The narrative style is documentary in the classical sense: It is only the captains who speak, there is no voiceover. Their own words and the pictures let viewers gain a very close insight into the captains' lives. Hamburg, the German port known as "gate to the world", creates the cinematic parenthesis of this documentary. All captains portrayed have a close relation to Hamburg - they live or work there or come to Hamburg with their ships every now and then.

The Seashore

A study of the seashore in mid-coast Maine.

Tide Pools

The sun rises over the tide pools of coastal Maine.

Secrets of the Great Barrier Reef

Down Under, just a few nights after the November full moon - when water temperature and tides are just right - one of nature's most extraordinary events explodes into life. Thousands of coral join in an elaborate mating ritual, a synchronized dance of naturally occurring phenomena that help increase the coral's odds of survival. Journey through more than 1,200 miles of Australia's treasured Great Barrier Reef to discover the secrets of the unique marine life that inhabit this dazzling spectacle, considered to be the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms and declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Walk the Tideline

The movie follows today’s beachcombers in Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Japan. The same endless piles of trash left by humans cover all the shores. Our shared ocean is loaded with time travelers made of plastic, the fruit of our throwaway culture and our indifference. They are the seeds of destruction, as they end up in the entrails of creatures living in the sea. Most of the beachcombers share the same worries about the environment. Beside the plastic trash, many travelers drift between continents, such as various plants’ seeds. Like all species, they look for new living environments where they could survive on a warming planet.

The Sea in Their Blood

A film made for the Central Office of Information concerning Britain's coastline, with music by Michael Nyman.

Alexander's Greatest Battle

Michael Wood travels through Syria and Iraq to uncover the story of Alexander the Great's decisive battle against the might of the Persian Empire in 331 BCE. Ancient writers agreed that it was fought somewhere near the city of Irbil in northern Iraq, but the exact location has never been discovered. Using dramatic new finds in the UK - a cuneiform clay tablet in the British Museum and a papyrus dug up in Egypt - Michael sheds new light on the course of events. Then to reconstruct the campaign, he follows Alexander's route through Damascus and Aleppo to the river Euphrates in Syria and travels into Northern Iraq with the British and US military.

Our Earth - Our Oceans

Plot unavailable

What Lurks Beneath?!

An homage to the weird and wonderful world of B-movies, this short fauxdocumentary by film artist Chris Gerrard splices together classic clips with some new footage to tell the ludicrously fake story of the mysterious people (and things) lurking beneath us in the eerie River Tay. Feast your eyes on this unique archaeology of aquatic-themed film.

Alexander der Große – Kampf und Vision

Plot unavailable

Devalar (C)

In Galician, Devalar means “the passing of time over things”. This short movie is a portrait of a seaside Galician village, on the edge of the Atlantic ocean, drawn by the memories of the director.

Sumus Maris

A woman embarks on a journey through three pivotal stages, meditating on the cyclical nature of life, where the uncontrollable power of the sea reflects the essential purity of the world.

The Mermaid

A trip that the author makes to a distant beach trying to find the place where his grandfather made a painting years ago.

Dive: Leben im Schiffswrack

Let yourself be enchanted by this exciting diving adventure! Down into the deep blue, down into a beautiful and alien world. Meet unique creatures such as the spotted eagle ray, the Hawaiian Prussian fish, moray eels and, of course, the popular clown fish. Swim through coral reefs with an extraordinary fauna in the beautiful Egyptian Red Sea.

The Pearl Fishers

Documentary about Japanese pearl fishers.

The Blue Cage

Twelve stories of courage, commitment, passion and love. The Blue Cage explains what happens when sailors and ship workers leave their homes and families for several months or even years, thousands of miles away.

A Heavy Sea

The rough sea crashing upon rocks.

Sea Gypsies: The Far Side of the World

The vessel is Infinity, a 120-foot hand-built sailboat, crewed by a band of miscreants. The journey, an 8,000 mile Pacific crossing from New Zealand to Patagonia, with a stop in Antarctica. Unlike all the other boats heading to the Southern Ocean, Infinity is no ice-reinforced super-yacht crewed by professional sailors; rather, Infinity lives in the moment and sails on a whim. What can be found in abundance on board is blood, sweat, enthusiasm, risk tolerance, disdain for authority, and an ample supply of alcohol – all in all a mad voyage of reckless adventure just for the sheer joy of it. Along the way the crew will battle a hurricane of ice in the Ross Sea, assist the radical environmental group Sea Shepherd in their fight with illegal whalers, and tear every sail they have. At the heart of their journey is a quest for awe and a sense of wonder with the raw power of the natural world.

Homme et Dauphin : Mode d’emploi

Plot unavailable

Island of the Hungry Ghosts

Christmas Island, Australia is home to one of the largest land migrations on earth—that of forty million crabs journeying from jungle to sea. But the jungle holds another secret: a high-security facility that indefinitely detains individuals seeking asylum.