Tears in the Arctic (2009)

Nanook of the North

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Winged Migration

This documentary follows various migratory bird species on their long journeys from their summer homes to the equator and back, covering thousands of miles and navigating by the stars. These arduous treks are crucial for survival, seeking hospitable climates and food sources. Birds face numerous challenges, including crossing oceans and evading predators, illness, and injury. Although migrations are undertaken as a community, birds disperse into family units once they reach their destinations, and every continent is affected by these migrations, hosting migratory bird species at least part of the year.

Polar Bear

A new mother’s memories of her own youth prepare her to navigate motherhood in the increasingly challenging world that polar bears face today.

The Last Ice

For centuries, Inuit in the Arctic have lived on and around the frozen ocean. Now, as climate change is rapidly melting the sea ice between Canada and Greenland, the outside world sees unprecedented opportunity. Oil and gas deposits, faster shipping routes, tourism, and fishing all provide financial incentive to exploit the newly opened waters. But for more than 100,000 Inuit, an entire way of life is at stake. Development here threatens to upset the delicate balance between their communities, land, and wildlife. Divided by aggressive colonization and decades of hardship, Inuit in Canada and Greenland are once again coming together, fighting to protect what will remain of their world. The question is, will the world listen?

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.

Utuqaq

In the Arctic, ice is both all around and constantly disappearing. “Utuqaq” explores climate change from the perspective of this beautiful and vital element, as four researchers embark on an expedition to drill ice cores in subzero temperatures.

Snow Bears

The enchanting true-to-life tale of polar bear cubs and their mother on a 400-mile journey from their birth den in Svalbard to the pack ice surrounding the North Pole.

Alaska's Giant Bears

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Arctic Peril

The world's most pristine and least understood ocean, the Arctic, is under threat from chemical pollutants, plastics and climate change. In the northern regions of Norway, Canada and Russia, you can see evidence of steadily warming Atlantic waters moving further north. This film explores the impact these waters are having on the diversity of organisms and ecosystems that are unique to the Arctic.

Charcot: Secret Poles

The adventures and exploits of Jean-Baptiste Charcot (1867-1936), an intrepid scientist and explorer who laid the foundations of modern oceanography.

Pythéas, l'astronome voyageur

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On Thin Ice

Climate change has reached the indigenous Nenets people in the north of Siberia. The nomads' herds of reindeer move on thin ice. The warming in the Russian Arctic is becoming dramatically visible. Huge craters open in the thawing permafrost and expose dangerous viruses and bacteria. Forest floors dry out and the taiga catches on fire. The pack ice off the coast is melting and depriving polar bears of their habitat so that they approach human settlements in their desperation. The changes in the nature of the Arctic Circle combine with the measurements of researchers and observations of the indigenous people to form a disturbing overall picture: In the Russian Arctic, Pandora's box has been opened! The film team had the chance to shoot in regions that were been restricted areas for decades. The documentary shows in impressive and depressing images already existing effects, phenomena and ominous interlinkages of global warming.

Under Thin Ice

Two Canadian experts in underwater filming, Mario Cyr and Jill Heinerth, join forces for the first time to record how Arctic wildlife is adapting to the dramatic effects of climate change.

Reindeer Family & Me

Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan travels to the frozen north, deep inside the Arctic Circle, to meet the ancient Sami people and the animals they hold so close - reindeer.

Camp Century: The Hidden City Beneath the Ice

How in 1959, during the heat of the Cold War, the government of the United States decided to create a secret military base located in the far north of Greenland: Camp Century, almost a real town with roads and houses, a nuclear plant to provide power and silos to house missiles aimed at the Soviet Union.

Atomfriedhof Arktis

Until 1992, Russia disposed of radioactive wastewater, radioactive waste and explosive nuclear waste in the Arctic Sea. And the ailing Northern Fleet was sunk here along with a no longer usable nuclear submarine. To this day it lies rusting on the bottom of the Arctic next to two other boats that have sunk in accidents, together with dangerous radioactive nuclear weapons. They form an atomic time bomb, even if official Russian authorities stubbornly deny an acute danger.

To the Arctic 3D

A journey into the lives of a mother polar bear and her two seven-month-old cubs as they navigate the changing Arctic wilderness they call home.

Last Days of the Arctic

Ragnar Alexsson, a.k.a. RAX, is among the most celebrated photographers in the world. His series Faces of the North are a living document of the dying cultures of the far northern reaches of the planet. His photo essays of farmers and fishermen in Icleand, and of the great hunters of Greenland give an amazing insight into everyday life of people who struggle a daily battle with the Arctic nature. A celebration of the photographer and his subjects, Last Days of the Arctic is an elegy for a disappearing landscape and the people who inhabit it.

Life In The Snow

In a seasonal special, Gordon Buchanan meets the animals who live in nature's winter wonderlands. He reveals their survival secrets, from the polar bear mother who gives her cubs the best possible start in life to the owl that finds food hidden beneath a blanket of snow, plus the plucky penguins that huddle together to keep warm. Gordon also unwraps the lives of our favourite Christmas characters - those wonderful reindeer and our very own robin redbreast!

Anerca, Breath of Life

Markku Lehmuskallio has devoted a large part of his documentary work to the indigenous people of the Arctic Circle. In this latest film, co-directed with his son Johannes Lehmuskallio, he composes a fascinating poetic ethnography inspired by the singing, dancing, forms of contemporary existence and, above all, the vital breath of these nomad communities mistreated by History.

Into the Land of Ice and Fire

Two parallel stories are gradually unfolding the everyday life of two very different persons - that of 86-year-old Sara and 7-year-old Mihka - both residing in Guovdageaidnu - Kautokeino, in the middle of the Norwegian arctic tundra, through the drastic change of the arctic seasons and the passage from the long winter’s darkness to the never-ending light of the summer season.

Angry Inuk

With "sealfies" and social media, a new tech-savvy generation of Inuit is wading into the world of activism, using humour and reason to confront aggressive animal rights vitriol and defend their traditional hunting practices. Director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril joins her fellow Inuit activists as they challenge outdated perceptions of Inuit and present themselves to the world as a modern people in dire need of a sustainable economy.

Beyond the White

In Northern Russia, a few dozen people still live in their traditional houses surrounded by water, stone, and sand. Cut off from vital infrastructure, almost forgotten by regional governance, these people have to cope with their everyday struggles.

Speechless: The Polar Realm

Beautifully filmed by New Zealand nature photographer Richard Sidey over the past decade around the polar regions, Speechless: The Polar Realm is a visual meditation of light, life, loss and wonder at the ends of the globe. This is the second film in Sidey’s non-verbal trilogy which is comprised of: - Landscapes at the World’s Ends (2010) - Speechless: The Polar Realm (2015) - Elementa (2020)

Elementa

A black-and-white visual meditation of wilderness and the elements. Wildlife filmmaker Richard Sidey returns to the triptych format for a cinematic experience like no other.

L'Année de l'ours

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Fullsterkur

FULLSTERKUR is the third documentary in a collection of films produced by Rogue Fitness, exploring strength culture around the world, connected specifically by the ancient tradition of stone lifting. Nestled at the doorstep of the Arctic Circle, the country of Iceland is uniquely acquainted with the relationship between strength and survival. For hundreds of years, men and women were challenged to overcome harsh weather and endless winter nights by developing their own distinct physical and mental fortitude—passed down from the age of the Vikings, and iconically represented by the lifting of heavy stones. Today, on an island with a population of just over 300,000, a disproportionate number of the world’s greatest strength athletes still call Iceland home.

Groenland, une île aux confins du monde

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Le Commandant Charcot, croisière hi-tech dans les glaces

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A Year Along the Abandoned Road

A portrait of a deserted fisherman's village in Northern Norway called Børfjord - a place with an incredible personality in the middle of a magnificent Arctic nature. The 12 minute short film was filmed in 70mm Super Panavision, using a specially developed "nature animation" technique. The result is a magic flight in one single shot, along the remains of an internal village road. At the same time a whole year passes by at 50 000 times normal speed! Most of the year, the village of Børfjord lies empty with virgin snow between cold houses. People show up only during a short and hectic summer season. But the cycles of nature go on as they have always done, totally independent of what people might do.

Arktic, 62 jours en solitaire

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The Thing from Another World

Scientists and US Air Force officials fend off a blood-thirsty alien organism while investigating at a remote arctic outpost.

The Brothers Solomon

A pair of well-meaning, but socially inept brothers try to find their perfect mates in order to provide their dying father with a grandchild.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger

Princess Farah refuses to marry Sinbad until Prince Kassim, her brother, is able to give his consent. However, the Prince's wicked stepmother, Queen Zenobia, has changed Kassim into a baboon in order to have her own son crowned as caliph. Sinbad, his crew, the Princess and the transformed Prince travel to a distant land, fighting every obstacle Zenobia places in their path, to seek the advice of a legendary wise man who can possibly tell how to end the spell.

The White Dawn

In 1896, three survivors of a whaling ship-wreck in the Canadian Arctic are saved and adopted by an Eskimo tribe but frictions arise when the three start misbehaving.

Far North

In the arctic, as Saiva is being born, a shaman declares that she is evil and will bring harm to all who become involved with her. Saiva is cast out of her tribe of herders and grows up to live a nomadic existence with Anja, a young woman she adopts as an infant. Then Loki, an injured and starving soldier, stumbles into their isolated lives. The women nurse him back to health, but treachery, violence and doom await them all.

Smilla's Sense of Snow

Smilla Jaspersen, half Danish, half Greenlander, attempts to understand the death of a small boy who falls from the roof of her apartment building. Suspecting wrongdoing, Smilla uncovers a trail of clues leading towards a secretive corporation that has made several mysterious expeditions to Greenland. Scenes from the film were shot in Copenhagen and western Greenland. The film was entered into the 47th Berlin International Film Festival, where director Bille August was nominated for the Golden Bear.

Throat Song

In a small town in the Canadian Arctic, Ippik, a young Inuit woman, suffers in an abusive relationship. She starts to heal when she connects with other victims of violence and finds her voice.

Gamera, the Giant Monster

A nuclear explosion in the far north unleashes Gamera, the legendary flying turtle, from his sleep under the ice. In his search for energy, Gamera wreaks havoc over the entire world, and it's up to the scientists, assisted by a young boy with a strange sympathic link to the monster, to put a stop to Gamera's rampage.

Deep

In 2100, when humanity has abandoned the earth, a colony of extravagant creatures still thrives in the deepest abyss of the ocean.

Ice Station Zebra

A top-secret Soviet spy satellite -- using stolen Western technology -- malfunctions and then goes into a descent that lands it near an isolated Arctic research encampment called Ice Station Zebra, belonging to the British, which starts sending out distress signals before falling silent. The atomic submarine Tigerfish, commanded by Cmdr. James Ferraday (Rock Hudson), is dispatched to save them.

Ice Sharks

A new breed of aggressive, ravenous sharks cracks the frozen ocean floor of an Arctic research station, devouring all who fall through. As the station sinks into frigid waters, those alive must fashion makeshift weapons or suffer the same fate.

Never Cry Wolf

A scientific researcher, sent on a government study: The Lupus Project, must investigate the possible "menace" of wolves in the north. To do so, he must survive in the wilderness for six months on his own. In the course of these events, he learns about the true beneficial and positive nature of the wolf species.

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

Based on a local legend and set in an unknown era, it deals with universal themes of love, possessiveness, family, jealousy and power. Beautifully shot, and acted by Inuit people, it portrays a time when people fought duels by taking turns to punch each other until one was unconscious, made love on the way to the caribou hunt, ate walrus meat and lit their igloos with seal-oil lamps.

The Superdeep

In 1984, a Russian research team goes below the surface to find out what secret the world's deepest borehole is hiding. On their expedition, something unexpectedly gruesome awaits the researchers.

Iceman

A team of Arctic researchers find a 40,000 year-old man frozen in ice and bring him back to life. Anthropologist Dr. Stanley Shephard wants to befriend the Iceman and learn about the man's past while Dr. Diane Brady and her surgical team want to discover the secret that will allow man to live in a frozen state.

The Island at the Top of the World

A Victorian gentleman hopes to find his long-lost son, who vanished while searching for a mysterious Viking community in a volcanic valley somewhere in uncharted Arctic regions. The gentleman puts together an expedition team to go on the search, but when they reach their destination they must escape from some Viking descendants who will kill to keep their existence a secret.

The Midnight Sky

A lone scientist in the Arctic races to contact a crew of astronauts returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe.

Arctic

A man stranded in the Arctic is finally about to receive his long awaited rescue. However, after a tragic accident, his opportunity is lost and he must then decide whether to remain in the relative safety of his camp or embark on a deadly trek through the unknown for potential salvation.