Moving Ice

Ice has always moved. When glaciation took hold some 34 million years ago, interconnected rivers of ice combined to produce the Earth's vast ice sheets. As temperatures slowly warmed glaciers developed a unique balancing act; advancing and retreating to calibrate their annual winter accumulation against summer melt. Sometimes calving colossal icebergs into the sea. A positive feedback loop that has regulated the movement of ice for millions of years.

Operation Deep Sea: Shedding Light in the Darkness

Deep sea: 1000m below the surface no light, immense pressure and icy temperatures. The deep sea encompasses more than 90% of the planets habitat. Yet we know less about these depths than about the moon. This film documents the technical, scientific, and ecological challenges of deep sea researchers. Scientists work worldwide together to collect data on the physical state of the upper ocean. With more than 3000 autonomous floats they monitor the oceans for influences on weather systems like El Nino or the monsoon. Does it affect global climate change? Does the deep sea offer solutions for the CO2 issue? Researchers in the Okinawa Trough are trying to find out. The sea floor harbors enormous amounts of resources: oil, natural gas, methane. Scientists work hard to try and locate these materials. Millions of deep sea dwellers are waiting for their discovery. The Census of Marine Life is trying to catalogue these bizarre ocean creatures before they disappear.

Abysses, la conquête des fonds marins

The Real Lost World

A modern team of explorers venture to the legendary "Lost World"- the remote jungle plateau of Roraima in Venezuela. Cut off from time and the jungle below, feared by natives because of "evil spirits", flying reptiles and other beasts, Roraima has sparked human imagination since the time of the 19th century explorers. Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle based his book "The Lost World" (1912) about men and dinosaurs on the tales from early explorers to this plateau. This was the inspiration for Jurassic Park. The modern expedition team encounters the animals, people and extreme habitat on its route across the Gran Sabana and up the 9000 ft. mountain. Once there they explore a new cave system, that may well contain new forms of life.

The Lonely Dorymen

For more than four centuries, young Portuguese fishermen have followed their fathers to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and in recent years to Greenland’s banks to fish the cold waters for cod. Intrepid men, set off for the Banks on schooners under full sail, then adrift in a flat-bottomed dory, they bait the hundred of hooks of their long-line, oblivious to fog, rain and Arctic wind, they labour 18 hours a day and haul up cod by the score.

Doo Sar: A Karakoram Ski Expedition film

Andrzej Bargiel and Jędrek Baranowski roam through Karakoram to create history. This movie is a journey full of passion and love for big mountain skiing told by two friends across 6,000m of descent.

Encounters at the End of the World

Herzog and cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger go to Antarctica to meet people who live and work there, and to capture footage of the continent's unique locations. Herzog's voiceover narration explains that his film will not be a typical Antarctica film about "fluffy penguins", but will explore the dreams of the people and the landscape.

Billy Connolly: A Scot in the Arctic

Comedian, actor and national treasure, Billy Connolly, travels to the wilds of Arctic Canada to spend quality time by himself , with just his thoughts and camera for company.

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.

The Mystery of Bay Bulls

A film on the "SAPPHIRE", the oldest identified wreck in Canadian waters. Parks Canada's underwater archaeology team is responsible for the excavation of the three-hundred-year-old frigate.

In Search of the Bowhead Whale

This adventure film features Scott McVay, an authority on whales, and filmmaker Bill Mason. The objective was to film the bowhead, a magnificent inhabitant of the cold Arctic seas brought to the edge of extinction by overfishing. With helicopter and Inuit guide, aqualungs and underwater cameras, the expedition searches out and meets the bowhead and beluga.

Silicon Valley Goes to Space

Discover how the big, bold ideas of Silicon Valley are helping launch a new era of private space exploration in this half-hour KQED Science documentary. From space tourism to mining the moon to companies ferrying NASA astronauts into space, a new wave of commercialization is shaking up the $300-billion global space industry. Meet a new generation of entrepreneurs, sprung from the high-tech culture of Silicon Valley, who are venturing into the new "wild west" of space exploration in search of their space gold. But are there new risks when space is no longer the exclusive domain of big governments?

Lost Cities of the Amazon

Over the centuries, explorers traded tales of a lost civilization amid the dense Amazonian rainforest. Scientists dismissed the legends as exaggerations, believing that the rainforest could not sustain such a huge population—until now. A new generation of explorers armed with 21st-century technology has uncovered remarkable evidence that could reinvent our understanding of the Amazon and the indigenous peoples who lived there. Using CGI and dramatic re-creations, National Geographic re-imagines the banks of the Amazon 500 years ago, teeming with inhabitants living in the Lost Cities of the Amazon.

Last Breath

A commercial diver is stranded on the seabed with only five minutes of oxygen supply, but with no chance of rescue for more than 30 minutes. With access to amazing archival footage, this is the true story of one man’s impossible fight for survival.

À la conquête de l'Empress of Ireland

Hunt For the Lost Superfleet

The Battle of the Falklands, between a Royal Navy task force and five German cruisers, was one of the most dramatic and bloodiest sea conflicts of World War I. When the smoke cleared, four of the German ships had sunk, including the flagship and pride of the German fleet, the SMS Scharnhorst. For decades, none of the downed vessels were ever found. Now, more than 100 years later, maritime archaeologist Mensun Bound and his team are searching for the ships and the secrets they hold. It's a race against time and the raging South Atlantic Ocean.

Épaves, l'or des grands fonds

For thousands of years, gold has been the most treasured and coveted of all metals. But extraction sites are dwindling and what little gold that remains is harder and harder to mine. However, there is a place where you can still find vast quantities of gold. Underwater archaeology has revealed that 3 million shipwrecks litter the ocean floor, 3,500 of which sunk with cargoes of ’precious metals’ onboard. Billions of dollars worth of gold, just sitting there, at the bottom of the sea. With today’s technology, this gold is in reach.

Titanic: The Complete Story

The "unsinkable" Titanic was a dream come true: four city blocks long and a passenger list worth 250 million dollars. But on her maiden voyage in April 1912, that dream became a nightmare when the giant ship struck an iceberg and sunk in the cold North Atlantic. More than 1,500 lives were lost in one of the greatest disasters of the 20th century. Now, using newsreels, stills, diaries, and exclusive interviews with survivors, Titanic: The Complete Story recounts the sensational history of the premier liner. In Part I: Death of a Dream, the largest ship ever built is christened in Ireland before a cheering crowd of 100,000. Witness the disaster this trek becomes as numerous iceberg warnings go unheeded and the ship sinks in the icy North Atlantic. In Part II: The Legend Lives On, over-packed lifeboats edge away from the crippled liner as a futile SOS signals flare into the night--leaving 1,500 passengers to a watery grave.

End to End: Svalbard

Seven adventurers embark on an expedition in the world's most hostile environment, The Arctic. Starting from the Southernmost peninsula of Spitsbergen Svalbard, they travel to the Northernmost part of the Island lasting for 40 days.

Antarctica: A Frozen History

Antarctica: A Frozen History takes a look at the history and stories of the human explorations in the Antarctic. Although quite slow paced and relatively old, the documentary film successfully incorporates reconstructed film material and original Antarctic expedition footage to fully illustrate the hardships of the heroic and extreme arctic explorations. Human endurance is tested to the maximum, as the documentary takes a look back at those who have tried, failed and conquered this most unforgiving landscape. Some of these stories entail Robert Falcon Scott, a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition of 1910–1913. Scott reached the South Pole in January 1912 only to find he had been beaten to the spot by 33 days. His entire party died on the return journey; eight months later, a search party discovered some of their bodies, diaries and photographs.