Fifteen years ago, a handful of African Penguins, normally found only on remote islands off the Southern African coast, stumbled across on of the Cape's most beautiful and popular tourist beaches. They swam, they saw, they conquered. And today, Boulders beach is home to more than 4,000 of these delightful, resourceful and entertaining seabirds who live side by side with their human neighbours -well, most of the time! These knee-high invaders not only share the beach, they dodge traffic, scale fences, and take over gardens, the golf course and even the occasional bedroom! For the two feathered stars, Henry and Margot, it's a tale of romance, the challenges of parenthood, separation and a penguin's worst nightmare, oil.
Narrator
Fifteen years ago, a handful of African Penguins, normally found only on remote islands off the Southern African coast, stumbled across on of the Cape's most beautiful and popular tourist beaches. They swam, they saw, they conquered. And today, Boulders beach is home to more than 4,000 of these delightful, resourceful and entertaining seabirds who live side by side with their human neighbours -well, most of the time! These knee-high invaders not only share the beach, they dodge traffic, scale fences, and take over gardens, the golf course and even the occasional bedroom! For the two feathered stars, Henry and Margot, it's a tale of romance, the challenges of parenthood, separation and a penguin's worst nightmare, oil.
2002-06-01
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The hilarious yet heart-rending story of an extraordinary group of birds
Two South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s rock 'n' roller, Rodriguez.
In French Polynesia, there is a place where every year, thousands of groupers gather in secret followed by hundreds of sharks… The photographer, diver and biologist Laurent Ballesta, with his team, wanted to better understand what motivates these fish to wait until the exact day of the full moon to spawn all at once! With the help of researchers from the CNRS of Moorea, they dived and conducted numerous experiments to study and witness this unique phenomenon. Taking advantage of this period of incredible richness, Laurent Ballesta did a record dive of 24 hours at over 20 meters.
In Africa, the giant fig tree and the tiny fig wasp differ in size a billion times over, but neither could exist without the other. Their extraordinary relationship is a marvel of co-evolution, a marriage which has lasted for millennia. It forms the basis of a complex web of dependency that supports entire ecosystems, providing food for thousands of creatures, from elephants, giraffes, and fruit bats, to forest hornbills, monkeys, insects, and fish.
Sir David Attenborough is in the Swiss Jura Mountains to discover the secrets of a giant. Beneath his feet lies a vast network of tunnels and chambers, home to a huge empire of ants. It is believed to be one of the largest animal societies in the world, where over a billion ants from rival colonies live in peace.
Yellowstone National Park is the oldest national park in the world. It contains the largest number of geysers and hot springs in the world. The park is known worldwide for the diversity of its species: it is home to herds of bison, bears, deer and many more fascinating species. Along with its amazing fauna and flora, the national park offers an insight into the history of Earth s formation. It takes visitors to an era when the free play of volcanos and forces of nature were shaping the world. Come with us and experience in pictures the unique beauty of one of the last paradises on our planet. This film was made with the most up-to-date 4K Ultra HD technology which presents you with a fabulous spectacle.
The Serengeti is Africa's largest nature reserve and one of its most notable inhabitants is the cheetah, also called cheetah. A young cheetah tells of his carefree childhood on the Serengeti Plain in Tanzania, thanks to his wonderful mother. She takes care of food on the shelf and with her he and his brothers and sister have nothing to fear. Lesson one: tripping the calf, lesson two: choking and biting to death, lesson three: Catching a calf yourself. Mother cheeta allows her boy to practice on a gazelle calf she has caught for them. One day, the young cheetahs will have to hunt themselves. Without Mommy's help.
South African fusion band Mango Groove performs 19 songs for a concert at Carnival City Casino's Big Top Arena in Gauteng, South Africa on 18 September 2010.
William Kentridge and Marlene Dumas – two of the most celebrated names in international contemporary art – come face to face in a series of frank, witty and intense discussions about their work and practice. The film follows them from the gentle ambience of a dinner conversation, to their studios – where we are given insight into the way that each artist works – to some of their finished works and installations. What emerges is how very differently these two highly successful South African artists approach image making. Dumas’ method is deeply intuitive – she often works on the floor as though embracing her paintings, pouring and dabbing paint to produce her remarkable portraits. Kentridge is intensely systematic, alternating gestural mark making with the repetitive action of drawing-filming-erasing for his animated films.
On the Antarctic periphery, bathed by the world's most violent waters, there is a lost island where southern nature is still intact, oblivious to man and its devastating impact. South Georgia is a world apart, a land swept by Antarctic winds known as the Furious 50 which require a constant struggle for survival.
While everyone knows the migration of wildebeest in east Africa, few have paid attention to their predecessors in this long journey: the zebras. Hundreds of thousands of zebras mark the vanguard of the greater movement of ungulates of the African continent, crossing the legendary Mara and facing terrible dangers. Through two adventures we will know the lights and shadows of this extraordinary journey. The dangers they will face will be just the preamble to major threats, threats that face all species in an ecosystem with a very fragile balance that year after year is dangerously close to destruction
Climate is changing. Instead of showing all the worst that can happen, this documentary focuses on the people suggesting solutions and their actions.
Story of the American Prairie as it was when vast herds of bison and elk grazed.
I traveled to South Africa to find a white family living on a desolate farm. I wanted to film how they faced the new days of equality after the fall of Apartheid. But I soon lost my way both on the endless roads and in my way. Instead, the film became a story about two very different women who both experienced a tragic loss in the midst of a white community not too fond of the future.
Examines the sea horse, the only fish that swims upright. We watch it use its prehensile tail to wrap around plants and other sea horses. A frontal bulge houses organs including an air ballast. Three fins propel this fish. We see a female place her eggs in a male's pouch where they are fertilized and nurtured until birth in violent contractions. Inside the pouch are nurturing blood vessels. We then follow the growth of an embryo, greatly magnified: we examine its heart beating and its dorsal fin moving. Young sea horses attach themselves to each other. The film ends with images of many sea horses moving on the ocean floor, superimposed on a horse race.
At first glance, it's just like other European plains. Once the wind and rivers worked on it, today it bears the signs of human activity. The Hungarian Puszta is different nonetheless: it lives a secret life where always happens something. Big birds hustle and push each other, the traffic of the white, salty lakes competes that of major airports, antlers clash like swords, and an owl claps on all this. The most peculiar creature is the protagonist itself. The golden jackal once lived here, but it vanished for decades because of constant persecution. But this four-legged predator, defying the danger, has returned and founded a family. The new pack howls in the frosty night: "This is our land!"
Explore a lesser-known part of Venice: the wild side! In coral reefs and hidden gardens, find everything from poisonous mammals to strange sea life.
Stalk the Arctic ice with the fiercest predator, the polar bear, as it prowls one of the most forbidding places on the planet: a hidden kingdom of magnificent creatures. Armed with a keen sense of smell and backed up by 1,700 pounds, fur and fangs, the polar bear stands alone at the top of the food chain. Yet many other hunters manage to survive in and around harsh arctic waters from the savvy arctic fox to the massive, whiskered walrus. The Arctic ice is revealed as a place of danger and drama as animals are stranded on frozen waters, trapped between moving sheets of ice, and caught in the struggle to survive. Brave the worst that nature has to offer.
In northern Zimbabwe, Lynne and Phil Richardson's National Geographic film crew follows a pride of lions for four years. During the dry season, lions and scientists set up camp at one of the Zambezi Valley's rare waterholes. Elephants, hyenas and buffalo also come there to quench their thirst. The fight for survival begins: hunting and being hunted is the eternal law of Africa's wildlife. The lions have now become accustomed to the human observers, who are able to take spectacular pictures from close proximity. The couple films the pack at night with an infrared camera, and a cub that is only a few hours old observes them with a hidden camera. They capture images that have never been seen before.