This is a film about the response by a community to New Zealand’s largest environmental disaster, seen through the eyes of that community. The film captures the shock, anger and grief driven into the heart of the local community, but also the humour, purpose and overwhelming positivity when people join together with a common goal.
On a stormy day in May of 1889, the South Fork Dam impounding Conemaugh Lake exploded, unleashing a 40-foot wall of water. The bustling industrial city of Johnstown, PA, in the valley below was reduced to a wasteland, killing more than 2,200. This heavily dramatized documentary reviews the factors that led to the dam's collapse, while dramatic reenactments and survivors' personal testimonies detail the horror.
For almost a century and a half, Her Majesty's Ship Breadalbane lay wrecked and forgotten under the Arctic ice. In the spring of 1983, noted undersea explorer Dr. Joseph MacInnis led a team of twenty men on one of the most difficult, dangerous and unforgettable undersea adventures of the century--to put a diver on board the sunken vessel and recover some artifacts. This film, introduced by H.R.H. Prince Charles, provides a stunning visual account of this historic expedition.
The life and times of sailor and adventurer Sir Peter Blake, one of New Zealand's favourite sons.
Wingsuit BASE jumping is often presented as a thrill seeking adrenaline rush. Spellbound takes us deeper into the more contemplative aspects of jumping, as David Walden and friends venture into the mountains around his home in New Zealand. Beautiful scenery and hypnotic cinematography eject us from our daily lives into a world of air, earth and flight.
Beyond The Battalion tells the story of the 28th Māori Battalion. It revisits two earlier films, including one on the 1977 pilgrimage of the battalion back to their WW11 battle grounds.
Jaw-dropping real-life footage, from the funny to the dramatic, reveals exactly what can go wrong when we venture onto the roads
Reg Sherren revisits the players and the places that were critical in the Gimli Glider incident of July 1983.
When an academic unearths a forgotten history, residents of the small township of Pukekohe, including kaumātua who have never told their personal stories before, confront its deep and dark racist past.
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.
Operation 8 examines the so-called 'anti-terror' raids that took place around New Zealand on October 15, 2007 - asking how and why they took place and at what cost to those targeted.
Barker White documents the environmental impact of the massive BP spill.
British Steam Railway Disasters is the definitive DVD collection of newsreel reports covering no fewer than 55 incidents from the steam era between 1913 and 1967 Also included is a specially made 15 minute analysis of the greatest tragedy of all - the multiple crash at Harrow And Wealdstone in 1952 which features much rare footage including previously unseen film rushes. Throughout, British Steam Railway Disasters investigates the common causes of railway accidents with a view to the lessons learnt from :- Driver Error, Excessive Speed, Poor Visibility In Fog, Signals Passed At Danger, Signalling Errors, Road Vehicle Collisions, Equipment Failure, Rolling Stock Instability and Track Defects.
March 27, 1977. At 2:00 in the afternoon, a thick fog rolled into the usually quiet Los Rodeos Airport in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. On the runway sat two fully loaded jumbo airliners. An explosion at a nearby airport had redirected air traffic to the undermanned airfield at Tenerife. Within three hours 583 people would be dead. This film reconstructs the moments leading up to the tragedy.
Three years in the making in conjunction with the BBC. Using never seen before home movies, photos and eye witness accounts - this is the inside story of the world's biggest motorsport disaster.
Isolated from the rest of the world since the time of the dinosaurs, New Zealand’s magnificent wildlife has been left to its own devices for 80 million years, with surprising consequences. This series reveals New Zealand’s rich and intriguing wildlife stories, from the bustling communities of penguins hiding away in giant daisy forests to the kakapo – Earth’s only species of flightless nocturnal parrots. New Zealand was also the last place to be discovered and settled by people who brought with them new animals, like merino sheep and new predators like the stoat. Finally the series meets the pioneering conservation heroes who are fighting to save some of its most endangered species.
Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes follows the story of the Space Shuttle Challenger and its crew, specifically Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian to be launched into space. The events of the days leading up to the disaster are detailed in this unique film, which uses no narration and no interviews. Instead the story is told solely with reports of journalists covering the story, extensive recordings from the NASA team, and interviews with McAuliffe and others who were part of this one-of-a-kind mission. Using rarely seen images and audio recordings, this show takes viewers behind the scenes of this compelling and historic story in a way never before seen.
On May 30, 1889 the South Fork Dam, which maintained a pleasure lake for wealthy Pittsburgh industrialists and their families, failed due to very heavy rains and poor maintenance by the dam's owners. The burst dam sent a wall of water and debris, 40 feet high and half a mile wide, 14 miles downstream to the bustling industrial city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. More than 2000 people lost their lives in the disaster. This documentary tells the story, and tells us that the disaster was easily avoidable.