Documentary

The world of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and its delicate and complex biological community.

This documentary follows the final days of the Offenhauser front engine roadsters and the emotional victories of Jim Rathmann, A.J. Foyt, Jr., Roger Ward, Parnelli Jones, and Bobby Unser.

Every year a great number of young moroccan boys cross Gibraltar strait by themselves heading to Europe. When they arrive at the promised land things change and they become illegal immigrants: Harragas.

In Bioko's Island, Equatorial Guinea, the crater of an inactive volcano has turned into a paradise. An expedition of scientists and climbers walk in for first time into this enigmatic territory in search of new species.

The story of La Fontaine tells that the grasshopper spent the summer singing and dancing while the ant was working to do her house and to gather food. New Atlantis pulls this legend down to explain how these small beings really are.

The true horror of the Nazi regime is exposed as the Allies fight the Germans in their homeland and liberate survivors of the concentration camps. The retreating Nazi’s force millions of people onto Death Marches across Europe – the cost to human live is massive. But the Allies also force million on the march as they set out the future ethnic shape of Europe. The pre-war “mixing” up of ethnicities in Europe is reversed as the big 3 seek to segregate Europe into different ethnic groups. The Allies had agreed Germany’s fate – the division into different zones of occupation. But there was no such agreement about the rest of Europe. The Red Army fought relentlessly in the knowledge that the countries it liberated would be under their control – determining these countries fate for fifty years. The Allied Generals had ignored the agreed zones of occupation in order to beat Germany. But now that the Nazis were on their last legs, political manoeuvring between the big three started in earnest. The Americans sided with the Russians because they wanted the Red Army to join them in the war against the Japanese. They went as far as brokering a secret deal to allow American bombers to use a Siberian air base. The British were excluded from this negotiation. The American firebombing of Tokyo killed more people that the two atom bombs.

Auckland Harbour, New Zealand. July 10th 1985. French navy combat frogmen place two bombs against the hull of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior. They explode at ten minutes to midnight, sinking the ship and killing photographer Fernando Pereira. The French government wants to stop Greenpeace protesting at Moruroa Atoll – the French military test site for nuclear weapons from 1966 to 1996. France is desperate to cover up both the attack on the Warrior and their nuclear weapons programme. So desperate that it is prepared to kill its opponents. The French Secret Service, the DGSE, sends a team of 11 agents to New Zealand to carry out “Operation Satanic”. Two of them, Captain Dominique Prieur and Major Alain Mafart, are arrested as they tried to leave New Zealand. Comvicted of conspiracy, arson and manslaughter, they are sentenced to ten years in jail. After less than three years they return to Paris. At first the French government deny involvement in the bombing, but eventually they are forced to admit liability. The Head of the DGSE, Admiral Pierre Lacoste, is sacked. Defence Minister Charles Hernu resigns. President Francois Mitterrand is widely believed to be implicated. France pays NZ$13 million compensation to the New Zealand government and NZ$8 million to Greenpeace. “The Boat and The Bomb” is a story of international espionage, government cover-up and the nuclear arms race. It’s a story which has disturbing parallels with today’s “war on terror”. It’s a story which won’t go away.

A pictorial overview of the varied aspects of Steam Railway operations, from A-Z.

This second episode begins on the morning of 22nd June 1941, when the Germans launched operation Barbarossa, the codename for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Three million Axis troops faced more than 4,5 million Red Army troops, and were outnumbered two to one in tanks, however superior strategies gave the Germans control. Significant tank confrontations such as those at Bialystok and Minsk are explored in detail.

As the US race riots raged in the 1960’s, and influential leaders such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X rose in the civil rights and Black Power movements, Britain had its own, controversial, figure of Black rights. The figure of Michael X, dubbed so after his public meeting with Malcolm, has since those heady days slipped into obscurity. Opinion is divided about this man, who was born in Trinidad and joined many of the Caribbean ‘Windrush’ generation in migrating to England. Whilst some believed him to be an inspirational focal point for a Black movement, others saw him as an opportunistic lowlife pimp and hustler always eager to improve his station. The film follows his life and times, from the increasingly open and multicultural Notting Hill area of London, to his gruesome end in his home country.

The third secret of Fatima was purportedly known by only two people: the Pope and Lucia, the Portuguese visionary who in an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1917 was given dire prophecies of the future of the planet. Within 7 weeks of each other these two key players have died. This extraordinary story examines the original Fatima visions and how Pope John Paul II believed he was himself the fulfilment of the third secret and that through his obsession with this obscure message saved the world from a thermo nuclear holocaust.

A documentary on the life and work of maverick cinematographer, Chris Doyle. This film showcases Doyle's work using footage from his films such as Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho. The film contains fascinating shots of Hong Kong street life, the city that Doyle has come to love and call his home and draw upon in his work. It's an intimate look at Doyle and his art with contributions from Wong Kar Wai, the acclaimed Hong Kong film director (In the Mood for Love), and others who have worked alongside him.

Long before Hollywood was invented, three Frenchmen pioneered the art of the cinema. As early as 1900, the Lumiere brothers exhibited film on the world’s largest screen to an audience of 25,000 people. The brothers Pathé had branches in London, Moscow, New York and the Far East in the early 1900s. George Melies by accident invented the jump-cut stop-motion transition in the same period. This programme features incredible footage, rarely seen, and some of it hand-coloured. A fascinating insight into the birth of cinema.

MAGIC(S) is a passionate, subject-driven account of a medical magician's daily routine throughout many of Israel's pediatric wards where he treats kids of all ethnicities with large doses of humour in an effort to speed healing and medical recovery. It further tells the story of contemporary life amidst security and political tensions in a time when cultural tensions are at a heightened level throughout this land. Science has already proven that laughter is a very effective medicine. MAGIC(S) demonstrates that no matter the cultural differences, children really do smile the same way all over the world.

Lemonade Stories by award-winning filmmaker Mary Mazzio, explores the powerful impact mothers have had on igniting entrepreneurial spirit and innovative thinking. Featuring successful entrepreneurs including Richard Branson (Virgin) - whose sense of risk-taking emerged from the life and example of his mother Eve, a pilot and WWII veteran. Billy Starr, founder of the Pan-Mass Challenge, who was motivated by his mother's untimely death from cancer to raise more than $100 million for cancer research. Russell Simmons (Def Jam Records), whilst nursing a few failed business attempts, accepted his mother's gift of $250 and turned it into a multi-million dollar company. Arthur Blank's vision for The Home Depot (the world's largest home improvement retailer) was inspired by the example of his mother, a widow with no business experience who took over and ran a family business with enormous success. What do all these entrepreneurs have in common? We explore the lessons each have learned from their mother and the unique bond they share. Through intimate interviews with each entrepreneur and their mother and exclusive access to their family albums, Lemonade Stories will take you into a world rarely seen by anyone outside of each entrepreneur's inner circle. This is a salute to all mothers out there!

Tells the heroic story of river, bay and soundkeepers around the U.S. - part environmental investigators, scientists, and litigators who take pollutors to court under the federal Clean Water Act. Featuring Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

A woman can have sex with as many men as she likes; if she conceives, the baby belongs to her and her household. The man has no involvement in the raising of the child. A couple gets married but lives apart for three years. How are relationships forged to try to keep the tribe alive? Where is the line drawn between promiscuity and fidelity?

He has two fathers and three mothers. She has two husbands who are brothers. They marry to keep the tribal identities together. Stories about all the polys-gandry, -gyny and gamy. Are human polyandrous by nature?

Is it possible to have a marriage and familial system where the woman rules above all matters? How is peace and harmony achieved in such matrilineal community? Can modern society learn anything from the tribes of the Khasis, Garos and Jaintias?

We have often heard of young girls being married off before they reach puberty but in this continuing story on unusual marriage customs, older women are married to boys as young as ten years old. Once a girl turns 18, she selects a male partner that is usually younger by 6 years. She then undertakes to support her husband during the first half of her life and in return, he has to take of her in her old age. Can this custom save the tribe?