Orange-and-black wings fill the sky as NOVA charts one of nature's most remarkable phenomena: the epic migration of monarch butterflies across North America. To capture a butterfly's point of view, NOVA’s filmmakers used a helicopter, ultralight, and hot-air balloon for aerial views along the transcontinental route. This wondrous annual migration, which scientists are just beginning to fathom, is an endangered phenomenon that could dwindle to insignificance if the giant firs that the butterflies cling to during the winter disappear.
Ice is one of the strangest, most beguiling and mesmerising substances in the world. Full of contradictions, it is transparent yet it can glow with colour, it is powerful enough to shatter rock but it can melt in the blink of an eye. It takes many shapes, from the fleeting beauty of a snowflake to the multi-million tonne vastness of a glacier and the eeriness of the ice fountains of far-flung moons. Science writer Dr Gabrielle Walker has been obsessed with ice ever since she first set foot on Arctic sea ice. In this programme she searches out some of the secrets hidden deep within the ice crystal to try to discover how something so ephemeral has the power to sculpt landscapes, to preserve our past and inform our future.
Valdis Nulle is a young and ambitious captain of fishing ship 'Dzintars'. He has his views on fishing methods but the sea makes its own rules. Kolkhoz authorities are forced to include dubious characters in his crew, for example, former captain Bauze and silent alcoholic Juhans. The young captain lacks experience in working with so many fishermen on board. Unexpectedly, pretty engineer Sabīne is ordered to test a new construction fishing net on Nulle's ship and 'production conflict' between her and the captain arises...
The title is based on the idiomatic expression "shmenti capelli" characterizing actions of people who like to shuffle and bamboozle others with superficial commitments. Karamfilov choose it as a metaphor for people with huge economic and political power. The funny comedy incorporates a tragic story in which Karamfilov plays two roles: the Big Guy and the Little Guy. Big is tied to the Mafia and the Secret services. Little is an unemployed teacher, squeezed and crushed by the system, which stops his heating and electricity, has his home emptied by a bailiff, and uses him as a tool in a game.
On the streets, people wander loose, almost free from any attachment like astronauts in space. From that analogy comes 'Moon Street'. While to the spaceships the moon works as reference, in Porto Alegre some cosmonauts find their north on Garibaldi street. Taking over professor's Edward Nkoloso dream and his Zambian space program, this documentary tries to bring the moon and the street together, claiming for a democratic space (urban and cosmic), away from the domain of powerful countries and avenues. How do the urban cosmonauts perceive the stars? The dispute? The dream? Neither USA, or Soviet Union, we searched for space through the free eyes of the forgotten, and many times invisible , street astronauts.
Through seven scenes, the film follows the life and destinies of stray dogs from the margins of our society, leading us to reconsider our attitude towards them. Through the seven “wandering” characters that we follow at different ages, from birth to old age, we witness their dignified struggle for survival. At the cemetery, in an abandoned factory, in an asylum, in a landfill, in places full of sorrow, our heroes search for love and togetherness. By combining documentary material, animation and acting interpretation of the thoughts of our heroes, we get to know lives between disappointment and hope, quite similar to ours.
Celebrating the 10th birthday of Radio Disney, a galaxy of pop stars pulls out all the stops in this energetic concert. Tracks include "Who Said" and "Best of Both Worlds" by Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana); "Find Yourself in You" and "Real Wild Child" by Everlife; "Rush" and "No One" by Aly & AJ; "The Party's Just Begun" and "Cheetah Sisters" by The Cheetah Girls; and "Right Where You Want Me" and "Beautiful Soul" by Jesse McCartney.
The maple leaf on the Canadian flag turns into two profiles that illustrate the many relationships between people.
After finding a magic wig that turns him into the drag super-shero, Maxxie LaWow, a shy young barista, Simon, must find the town's missing queens and rescue them from Dyna Bolical, an ambitious queen bent on harvesting their magical anti-aging tears.
Charlie Silvercloud III lives with the family curse, on his fathers and grandfathers 25th birthday they were killed by a milk truck. It is now Charlies turn.
Cafe Waldluft is a rustic hotel in the picturesque Bavarian town of Berchtesgaden, near Hitler's former mountain retreat. Over the past few years, tourist numbers and the business have started to decline, so when Flora Kurz, the cafe owner, was approached by the German authorities to house refugees, she decided to fill her rooms with asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone.
Six friends go camping at a campsite where a park ranger murdered two people with a machete. The group doesn't believe a legend about it is true until strange events start to occur for each of them.
“Uncanny Stories” is a horror anthology of short stories from famous writers adapted in animation by directors who are mad about genre films. The works of Laura Kasischke, H.P. Lovecraft and Jean Ray alongside the Brothers Grimm, William Tenn and Edgar Allan Poe all haunt the screen in a world of horror, fear and angst. You’ll encounter a young girl who hates her stepmother so much she wants her dead, two young hikers who cross paths with a strange old woman, an explorer trapped by terrifying forces from a distant past, a man driving down a country lane on a rainy night, an endless nightmare, a lighthouse in a storm. Transgressive and poignant stories that tap into your innermost fears.
Travel up and down on a high-rise elevator alongside a curious kid, texting teenagers and a couple that won't stop arguing.
Very different lives, becomes interweaved during what seems like an ordinary day. Franzis Namazi is a newly arrived immigrant from Gambia to Sweden. He is about to give up on his little store selling African art. Karin Carlsson-Said is a lawyer who is about to enter a new important step in her career as a lawyer. Her husband Moses must send money to his hospitalized father in Uganda, but there are problems with the transaction and has issues with keeping up his work as a Social Worker. Bosse is the TV star who finds out he has been fired off his own show and finds his young wife with another man, Hakan is a charming celebrity with an alcohol problem and now once again needs help from his lawyer Karin Carlsson-Said.
Alan (Johnny Vegas) searches for answers in all the wrong places and this time he thinks he's found them...on the internet in the form of a highly trained deadly assassin. But he's about to learn the true price of entering the 'dark_net'.
The first rule is that there are no rules. For the bare-knuckle combatants competing in Musangwe fights, anything goes - you can even put a curse on him. The sport, which dates back centuries, has become a South African institution. Any male from the age of nine to ninety can compete. We follow a group of fighters as they slug it out in the ring. Who will be this year's champion?
After his release from prison, Number 1 will seek to make up for lost time, and together with his compadre they will do what is necessary to continue managing the sale and distribution of drugs in the region.
Dated to the late Stone Age, Stonehenge may be the best-known and most mysterious relic of prehistory. Every year, a million visitors are drawn to England to gaze upon the famous circle of stones, but the monument's meaning has continued to elude us. Now investigations inside and around Stonehenge have kicked off a dramatic new era of discovery and debate over who built Stonehenge and for what purpose. How did prehistoric people quarry, transport, sculpt, and erect these giant stones? Granted exclusive access to the dig site at Bluestonehenge, a prehistoric stone-circle monument recently discovered about a mile from Stonehenge, NOVA cameras join a new generation of researchers finding important clues to this enduring mystery.
In a pathetic attempt to host his own children’s nature show, a failing filmmaker travels 3,000 miles asking North Americans how to save the endangered monarch butterfly, and ourselves, from extinction.
Monarch butterflies have brought hope to the darkest times of people's lives. In Mexico, when they arrive for Day of the Dead, they are thought to be souls of the departed. Coincidence?
Throughout history, butterflies have fascinated artists and philosophers, scientists and schoolchildren with their profound mystery and beauty. In Metamorphosis you will explore their remarkable world as few ever have before. Spectacular photography, computer animation and magnetic resonance imaging open once hidden doors to every stage of a butterfly's life-cycle. From an egg the size of a pinhead to a magnificent flying insect. It is a transformation so incredible biologists have called it "butterfly magic." How did these extraordinary creatures come into being? Are they the products of a blind, undirected process? Or were they designed by an intelligent cause? Filmed in North, Central, and South America, Metamorphosis is an unforgettable documentary filled with the joys of discovery and wonder.
A beautiful love story in danger. Our future depends on an amazing love story between the flowers and fauna consisting of bees, butterflies, birds and bats, which allow these species to reproduce. Delicate and graceful, the flowers are not content to be the ultimate symbol of beauty. On the contrary, their vibrant colors and their exotic flavors are so many wonders that attract pollinators and drunk with desire. All these animals are involved in a complex dance of seduction on which one third of our crops, a dance without which we could survive ... Pollen presents the unsung heroes of the global food chain. Their fantastic worlds are full of stories, drama and beauty. While a fragile and threatened, essential for the balance of the planet, it should now actively protect ...
An exploration of the diversity of moths and butterflies from caterpillars to larvae to chrysalis to winged flight. The documentary covers camouflage and other anti-predatory tactics along with uniqueness of different species and amazing feats and colors.
The story of the Monarch butterfly: a symbol of American pride and the embodiment of the returning dead in Mexico. It would be a happy story, only, today they are dying. The monarch butterflies population has declined by up to 80% in the last decade. Who is to blame?
The work of taxonomists hides more secrets than can be perceived.
One of the world’s greatest ancient enigmas, the Nazca lines are a dense network of criss-crossing lines, geometric shapes, and animal figures etched across 200 square miles of Peruvian desert. Who created them and why? Ever since they were discovered in the 1920s, scholars and enthusiasts have raised countless theories about their purpose. Now, archaeologists have discovered hundreds of long-hidden lines and figures as well as evidence of ancient rituals, offering new clues to the origins and motivations behind the giant desert symbols.
La vispa Teresa (“Lively Theresa”) is based on a well known song; a girl, ten, catches a butterfly and all the other insects intervene to save it.
Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly is a 56-minute narrated film that unfolds along the shores of Cape Ann and in the heart of Mexico’s forested volcanic mountains. Every stage of the butterfly’s life cycle is experienced in vibrant close-up, from mating to egg to caterpillar to adult, and set against the backdrop of sea and forest, sun and wind.
Directed by one of the pioneers of the cinematic industry, James Williamson, The History of a Butterfly - A Romance of Insect Life is an intriguing look at the life cycles of butterflies and moths. Caterpillars are seen hatching, feeding and ready for pupation and with three caterpillars changing into chrysalis and the birth of a peacock butterfly, this black and white silent film is an early example of British natural history filmmaking.
Interweaves the lives of the threatened monarch butterfly with an indigenous community in Mexico fighting to restore the forest they nearly destroyed.
Documentary on the different stages in the development from caterpillar to butterfly.
Known for their stunningly beautiful colours and mystical powers of transformation, the humble butterfly is revered by many. In one small creature lays the mystery of creation as in a short lifetime a full evolution occurs. Amongst the most captivating is the Monarch Butterfly. Known as the wandered , this striking orange insect undertakes a mammoth voyage that many of its larger counterparts could not even fathom. Follow this incredible creature and allow yourself to be lost in its magic as this 3D feature allows you to have a firsthand experience of the glorious Monarch Butterfly. A captivating journey for the whole family!
It takes two or three generations for the monarch butterfly to reach the Canadian breeding grounds, but it is one "supergeneration" that makes the 2,000 mile return trip back south into central Mexico. The documentary film covers Dr Fred Urquhart's interest in monarch butterflies, with perspectives of Urquhart as a child wondering where the butterflies went, his years of research and study into their life and migration, to his time decades-later as a senior scientist looking back at his investigations and discoveries about the insect's life pattern.
Metamorphosis seems like the ultimate evolutionary magic trick - the amazing transformation of one creature into a totally different being: one life, two bodies.
A documentary that tries to explain the reason for the passion of the Mexican football fandom.
Shot at two cutting-edge research labs which specialize in the evolution of butterflies and moths, BIopixels is an animated short film exploring the world of evolutionary biology on the microscopic scale. The images - rendered from collections containing over 50,000 specimens - were take by microscopists over three years to create the animated shorts Nanoscapes and Biopixels. Both the animation and the score play with concepts of pattern, time, density and other means of development common to biological evolution.