Dernier Chou de Kerguelen, Le

Original Title: Le Dernier Chou de Kerguelen
Duration: 32’
Producer: Sophie Parrault
Director: François de Riberolles
Company: Bonne Pioche Productions
Scientific Field: Environemnt / Experimental / Wildlife / Nature / Fauna and Flora
Year: 2009
Country: France

Quand l’homme pose le pied pour la première fois sur les terres vierges de Kerguelen, il y a seulement 2 siècles, il sonne la fin d’une tranquillité absolue et le début d’une transformation irrémédiable. Les mentalités ont mis du temps à évoluer, la prise de conscience écologique est récente, et les conséquences des erreurs du passé sont comme des stigmates qui marquent cet écosystème unique. Les lapins de garennes sont aujourd’hui indénombrables et participent à la désertification des terres. Les chats redevenus sauvages sont près de dix mille à ravager les colonies d’oiseaux marins, les rennes sont deux mille à dévorer mousses et lichens, les graines introduites supplantent la flore d’origine. À tout cela il faut ajouter que les Kerguelen sont elles aussi sous l’influence des variations climatiques qui défigurent d’autant plus le paysage.
Les scientifiques tentent aujourd’hui de trouver des solutions et les jeunes hivernants se relaient chaque année, et avec la même motivation pour récolter un maximum de données sur le terrain et tenter de mieux comprendre comment fonctionne cet environnement.
À travers le regard des jeunes scientifiques qui partent pour 15 mois hiverner sur l’archipel des Kerguelen, au travers de leurs découvertes et de leur travail dans des conditions difficiles mais inoubliables, voici une histoire universelle : celle de notre rapport à la nature.
Dans ce paysage qui reste grandiose, ce film raconte un bras de fer entre nature humaine et nature sauvage.

Dinosaurs on Ice

Original Title: Dinosaurs on Ice
Duration: 52’
Producer: Ruth Berry / Mark Chapman
Director: Ruth Berry
Company: Big Island Pictures
Scientific Field: Palaeontology
Year: 2008
Country: Australia

In the far north of Alaska the secrets of polar dinosaurs are waiting to be unlocked, but just like it was 70 million years ago, the Arctic is not a place for everyone and the dinosaur bones are trapped in an icy tomb - an impenetrable wall of permafrost. To get to them two scientists are experimenting with extreme methods of palaeontology. Dr Tom Rich from the Museum of Victoria and Dr Tony Fiorillo from Dallas take the challenge differently. They undertake separate expeditions to the Colville River. This quest is not easy: the weather is extreme and the personalities are disparate…

Disgunstingly Healthy – Leeches and Maggots

Original Title: Ekelhaft Gesund – Blutegel und Maden
Duration: 2x 43’
Producer: Lilian Franck / Robert Cibis
Director: Robert Cibis / Michaela Kirst
Company: Conrad Schmidt
Scientific Field: Medical
Year: 2007
Country: Germany

They squirm and wriggle. They crawl and slither. They are older than the dinosaurs. They were hated and loved, almost eradicated from the face of the earth, but always struggled through – and they are now having their greatest comeback ever.
The one-off Disgustingly healthy enters the fascinating world of the small squirming creatures that have populated earth for millions of years – and had just enough time to evolve into the perfect healers.
Our one-hour documentary tells the story of the riveting rise, the dramatic fall and the surprising renaissance of the leech and the maggot in western medicine. It also tells of the century old love-hate relationship between men and these little monsters – a liaison alternating between attraction and disgust.

Donjon de Vincennes, Le

Original Title: Le Donjon de Vincennes, les Coulisses d’une Restauration
Duration: 80’
Producer: CNRS Images
Director: Claude Delhaye / Didier Boclet / Christophe Gombert
Company: CNRS
Scientific Field: History / Archaeology
Year: 2008
Country: France

Apres six siècles d’existence, le donjon de Vincennes, édifice médiéval unique en Europe, vient de bénéficier de la plus importante restauration de son histoire.
En douze films, les temps forts de cette restauration exceptionnelle par sa durée, son ampleur et sa technicité, sont dévoiles. Ce DVD raconte l’aventure humaine, fruit d’une collaboration réussie entre les architectes, les scientifiques et les entreprises de restauration.

Eco-Crimes: Fishing Pirates

Original Title: Eco-Crimes: Piratenfischer
Duration: 52’25’’
Producer: Thomas Weidenbach
Director: Heinz Greulig / Thomas Weidenbach
Company: Laengengrand Filmproduktion
Scientific Field: Environment / Nature
Year: 2008
Country: Germany

This film tells the story of an unknown war. It's being waged in the Southern Ocean, in the fish-rich waters around the Antarctic. Its victims are fish, the Patagonian toothfish, to be precise. It's sold under various names and is highly prized particularly in the USA, Japan and China for its firm, white flesh that has very few bones - white gold to fishermen, because it fetches a thousand US dollars a fish and more. This lucrative business has attracted illegal fishermen who abide by no fishing quotas or laws. These pirates and the men behind them become millionaires on the rich pickings. Their unscrupulous fishing methods threaten not only the livelihoods of legal fishermen but the integrity of the entire marine eco-system.
The starting point of the film is the powerlessness of the AFMA, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority. For years its officers have had to watch while the rich fishing grounds around the Heard and McDonald Islands have been plundered by fishing pirates. They operate large factory ships that stay at sea for months on end and respect no laws or regulations. Using longlines kilometres in length equipped with thousands of hooks, they haul the fish out from depths of up to 4,000 metres. They also bring death to countless sea lions and albatrosses…

Eco-Crimes: Ozone Killers

Original Title: Eco-Crimes: Ozonkiller
Duration: 52’25’’
Producer: Thomas Weidenbach
Director: Heinz Greulig / Thomas Weidenbach
Company: Laengengrand Filmproduktion
Scientific Field: Environment / Nature / Technologies
Year: 2008
Country: Germany

This film tells the story of a problem that everyone thought long solved – and shows just how wrong that assumption is. It concerns the destruction of the protective ozone layer in the Earth's atmosphere, which screens mankind from the ultra-violet rays of the sun that cause skin cancer. Back in 1987 the world community adopted the 'Montreal Protocol' and banned the production of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) for use as propellants and coolants. These chemicals are considered to be the main cause of the ozone hole. This milestone was greeted with public acclaim. The Montreal Protocol was seen as the most successful environmental protection agreement ever reached. No one at the time had any thoughts of illegal trafficking in CFCs and the involvement of organised crime.
The starting point of the film is the research carried out by an ecological organisation in London – the "Environmental Investigation Agency" or EIA - and by the German customs authorities. At the end of the 90s, a German businessman, Georg G., came to the attention of customs investigators. He used falsified documents to import hundreds of tonnes of the long-banned ozone killers into Europe. His source for the chemicals was China, where a special provision still permits them to be produced up to the year 2010 – as an interim measure and only for domestic use. ..

Eco-Crimes: The Tibet Connection

Original Title: Eco-Crimes: Tibet Connection
Duration: 52’25’’
Producer: Thomas Weidenbach
Director: Heinz Greulig / Thomas Weidenbach
Company: Laengengrand Filmproduktion
Scientific Field: Environment / Nature / Technologies
Year: 2008
Country: Germany

This film tells the story of a terrible suspicion. It concerns the last tigers in India. They are the most loved of the world's great cats, the national symbol of six countries and strictly protected for over thirty years. But that's precisely what makes them the target of greed and the craving for status. The tigers are being hunted as never before. For a long time, it was believed that tiger hunting was the work of individual poachers and that the illegal trade in tiger products could be brought under control through appeals and good will. It was assumed that the tigers were killed above all in order to use their bones in traditional Chinese medicine. But the truth is very different. The majestic cats are killed primarily in order to sell their skins to customers that no one had ever suspected. "Eco-Crimes" reveals just who is behind this mass tiger poaching and who is buying the skins. For those in charge of this trade, it's about millions. For the Indian tiger, it's about survival.
The starting point of the film is the research carried out by Belinda Wright of the "Wildlife Protection Society of India". This wildlife photographer and film-maker has given up her career because she can no longer stand idly by, while the tiger is threatened with extinction. ..

Elephants on the Run

Original Title: Un Éléphant ça Court Enormément
Duration: 54’27’’
Producer: Serge Flamé
Director: Lydwine Derny
Company: Centre Audiovisuel de l’Université Catholique de Louvain la Neuve
Scientific Field: Experimental / Wildlife / Technologies / Biomechanics / Physiology / Locomotion
Year: 2008
Country: Belgium

Are elephants capable of running ?
The question leaves scientists baffled because even though it seems to be impossible, some pictures and verbal descriptions are stirring up doubt about it…A team of Belgian researchers decided to find out for sure and set off for Thailand with a brand new invention in their luggage : the first force platform designed to support the weight of an elephant ! This unique measuring device would allow scientists to clear the matter up once and for all!
But, would the measuring system work properly deep in the heart of Thailand? The mission had two months to succeed, two months to catch an elephant on the run…

Evolution

Original Title: Evolution
Duration: 7x56‘46’’
Producer: Paula Apsell / Senior Executive Producer / WGBH and Richard Hutton / Evolution Series Executive Producer / Paul G. Allen and Jody Patton Executives-in-Charge of Production of Clear Blue Sky Productions
Director:
Company: WGBH Educational Foundation and Clear Blue Sky Productions, Inc.
Scientific Field: Evolution
Year: 2001
Country: USA

Evolution determines who lives, who dies, and who passes traits on to the next generation. The process plays a critical role in our daily lives, yet it is one of the most overlooked -- and misunderstood -- concepts ever described.
The Evolution project's eight-hour television miniseries travels the world to examine evolutionary science and the profound effect it has had on society and culture. From the genius and torment of Charles Darwin to the scientific revolution that spawned the tree of life, from the power of sex to drive evolutionary change to the importance of mass extinctions in the birth of new species, the Evolution series brings this fascinating process to life. The series also explores the emergence of consciousness, the origin and success of humans, and the perceived conflict between science and religion in understanding life on Earth.
The Evolution series' goals are to heighten public understanding of evolution and how it works, to dispel common misunderstandings about the process, and to illuminate why it is relevant to all of us.

Evolve: Eyes

Original Title: Evolve: Eyes
Duration: 46’28’’
Producer: Kurt Tondorf / Stephanie Angelides
Director: Kurt Tondorf / Stephanie Angelides / Shelley Schulze / Larry Engel
Company: Optomen Productions
Scientific Field: Nature
Year: 2008
Country: USA

Whether for tracking prey or evading predators, eyes are one of evolution’s most vital innovations. These natural targeting devices equip 95 percent of the world’s species, though they vary widely in form and function. How did these amazing devices first evolve? Marine biologist Alex Goodell designs an experiment on jellyfish to show how their primitive eyespots have contributed to their survival through five mass extinctions; paleontologist Bruce Lieberman unearths the bizarre, multi-lensed eyes of trilobites, who engineered their eyes from rock 540 million years ago; and biologist Chris Kirk extracts eyeballs from animal cadavers to show how some mammals evolved a mirror at the back of their eyes to provide unparalleled night vision.

Extraordinary Animals in the Womb

Original Title: Extraordinary Animals in the Womb
Duration: 75’40’’
Producer: Sarah Winter
Director: Peter Chinn
Company: Pioneer Productions
Scientific Field: Nature
Year: 2008
Country: UK

Extraordinary Animals in the Womb explores some truly extraordinary methods of reproduction and gestation in a selection of animals from across the natural world - from the first beginnings of courtship right through to birth and beyond. We take cameras inside the extraordinary and hitherto unseen world of these animals in utero, following in step-by-step detail the process through which each individual species-specific trait develops. How does a penguin embryo not freeze? Why does a kangaroo leave its mother only half formed? Why is having any brothers and sisters so potentially lethal for many shark fetuses? And what was it about one creature’s method of reproduction that caused Charles Darwin to question the existence of God himself?

Extreme Water

Original Title: Aguas Extremas
Duration: 26’
Producer: Juan Antonio Domínguez
Director: Juan Antonio Rodríguez / Ramon Campóamor
Company: CINTV
Scientific Field: Nature
Year: 2008
Country: Spain

Apart from the sea, there are salty waters where the living conditions are exceptionally hard, like the salt mines, the salt marshes and other extremely saline places. Nonetheless, we find a handful of beings capable of living there.

Eye of the Earth: A Place to Observe the Universe, The

Original Title: El Ojo de la Tierra: un Lugar para Observar el Universo
Duration: 24’18’’
Producer: Yamila Abud / Eliana Piemonte / Diego Julio Ludueña
Director: Diego Julio Ludueña
Company: Pro-secretara de Comunicación Institucional, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
Scientific Field: Space
Year: 2008
Country: Argentina

Five scientists have found in the Puna salteña a place where the biggest telescope of the world could be settled.
This place is at the edge of the Macon Cord and their operational base is in Tolar Grande, about 400 km to the west of the capital of Salta, in the heart of the Puna about 4,600 msnm.
This European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) is projected by the European Austral Observatory and its mirror will have 42 meters of diameter, being four times bigger to those that exist now.
This opens new horizons in the science that can be developed since with these new instruments the first stages of the formation of the universe would be observed.
Tolar Grande competes with other three sites at world-wide level like a candidate for the installation of the telescope. The other sites are: Chile, Morocco and Canary Islands. In 2009 the final destiny of the E-ELT will be known.

Fatal Circle

Original Title: Pogrešan Krug
Duration: 46’
Producer: Nisvet Hrustić
Director: Nisvet Hrustić
Company: Independent Production
Scientific Field: Environment / Ecology
Year: 2007
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina

Garbage and toxic waste is all around us.
Municipal authorities manage to displace large depot of expired medicines,
combined with great pressure from Environmental Society and citizen protest.
What is the situation with waste dumps, rivers, meadovs and forests in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
What do scientists and common people say?
What is the future of our planet Earth?
Fatal circle?

Fishing the stars

Original Title: Pecheurs d’ Etoiles
Duration: 26’
Producer: CNRS Images
Director: Marie Chevais
Company: CNRS
Scientific Field: Exact Sciences / Technologies / Astrophysics
Year: 2008
Country: France

ANTARES est le premier télescope a neutrinos sous-marin mais c’est également un véritable laboratoire pluridisciplinaire sous la mer.
Le détecteur est installe en Méditerranée, a 2500 m de fond. L’objectif du télescope est de détecter les neutrinos de haute énergie provenant du fin fond d l’Univers. Pour observer cette particule très furtive, les chercheurs ont du installer le détecteur au fond de la mer car l’eau sert de révélateur des neutrinos. Ceux-ci sont de véritables messagers cosmiques qui s’échappent des phénomènes violents de l’Univers comme les supernovae et es trous noirs ou qui proviennent de l’énigmatique matière noire. Ainsi, en mesurant la trajectoire et e’énergie des neutrino, ANTARES permettra de mieux connaître ces mystérieux objets célestes et d’acquérir une meilleure compréhension de l’Univers.
Il existe une version courte de ce film inclus dans le DVD.

Fixing My brain

Original Title: Fixing My Brain
Duration: 5’50’’
Producer: Vanessa Dylyn
Director: Christina Pochmursky
Company: Matter of Fact Media Inc.
Scientific Field: Science / Education
Year: 2008
Country: Canada

Fixing My Brain, a one-hour documentary that tells the dramatic story of Barbara Arrowsmith, a woman who fixed her own brain, and the journey of three learning-disabled boys who spent a year at her “brain bootcamp” in an effort to improve their brain function.

Food Miles

Original Title: Food Miles
Duration: 26’46’’
Producer: Elizabeth Westrate / Véronique Bernard
Director: Tad Fettig
Company: kontentreal
Scientific Field:
Year: 2008
Country: USA

In the 21st century global food economy, most foods travel an average of 1,500 miles from farm to plate. As renowned author Michael Pollan elaborates, the impacts of this fossil fuel-driven system are detrimental to the environment, but also to our health and social well-being. Writer Michael Shuman argues that investing in local food systems lessens the distance between who we are and what we eat, and creates wealth in the community.

Four Wings and a Prayer

Original Title: L’ Aile d’un Papillon
Duration: 78’
Producer: Emmanuel Laurent / Michael McMahon
Director: Nicolas de Pencier
Company: Films a Trois & Primitive Entertainment
Scientific Field: Nature
Year: 2007
Country: France

Four wings and a prayer is a visually rich and exciting new documentary about one of the world’s most beautiful and mysterious creatures: the Monarch butterfly. Nowhere in nature is there a more powerful mix of scientific marvel, awesome beauty and epic struggle for survival. This documentary, shot in stunning High Definition video, is a journey into the Monarch’s secret and fascinating world. We will visit the spectacular locations it calls home, meet its friends and enemies (including humans in both camps), and fly with it on one of the most inspiring migratory odysseys imaginable.

From Freezer to Furnace

Original Title: Heisskalt – Die Extremsten Orte der Welt
Duration: 5’55’
Producer: Toni Nemeth / Manfred Christ
Director: Udo Maurer
Company: Cosmos Factory for ORF
Scientific Field: Environment
Year: 2008
Country: Austria

This is a journey to the hottest and coldest places on earth, where people go about their everyday lives under extreme conditions - and even enjoy it. The Northern Pole of Cold, where the northern hemisphere’s lowest air temperature of minus 71.2 degrees Celsius has been recorded, lies in north-east Siberia. The village of Oymyakon is the coldest inhabited place on earth – a real “natural freezer”. Thousands of miles away lies America’s answer to the record-holding Russian village: Furnace Creek, headquarters of Death Valley National Park, is the hottest place in the United States and one of the hottest spots in the world. In 1913, 56.7 degrees Celsius were measured here. The world’s official hottest place is called Al´Aziziyah in Libya: this city is regarded as a gateway to the Sahara desert, just 25 miles from Tripoli and the Mediterranean Sea. In 1922 the world record of 58 degrees Celsius was measured here - in the shade. And although temperatures in Al´Aziziyah regularly exceed 40 degrees, the 1922 world record has never been reached again. Another infamous blast furnace is the Danakil Depression in the borderland between Eritrea and Ethiopia - one of the most forbidding deserts on earth, a volcanic wasteland almost 150 meters below sea level, which boasts the highest measured annual average temperature: 34.6 degrees Celsius.

From Insect Wings to Helicopter Blades

Original Title: Les Incroyables Machines Volmantes du Professeur Oehmichen
Duration: 52’
Producer: Valérie Abita
Director: Stéphanie Bégoin
Company: Sombrero and Co
Scientific Field: History / Science
Year: 2009
Country: France

At the beginning of the 20th century, European and American inventors were engaged in an extraordinary race to build the first working helicopter.
However, numerous setbacks and disasters made it clear that the time was not ripe for success.
Renewed enthusiasm in the early 1920s encouraged several aviation pioneers to take up the gauntlet once again.
The Americans, represented by Berliner and Bothezat and backed by the US Army, tested a number of ideas for innovative flying devices. In Europe, two determined inventors competed for success: Pescara of Spain, and the Frenchman, Etienne Oehmichen.
Between them they broke record after record. However, the greatest accolade went to the Frenchman when his craft succeeded in flying one kilometre in a closed-circuit.
Oehmichen’s victory in the race to build a viable helicopter was due to a ground-breaking idea. Indeed, while his competitors called on technology to provide the answers, Oehmichen looked to the animal world for solutions by building special cameras to record the flight of birds and insects. These photos helped him identify the key movements needed for helicopter flight. And in 1924, he triumphed.
Today, aeronautical laboratories all over the world are taking the ideas of the early pioneers yet another step further. Scientists are developing small flying robots designed to fly autonomously. These micro-drones and nano-drones are tiny helicopters; some are so small that they could easily be mistaken for insects!

Fruit Fly in New York, A

A graduate student has been working for about 2 years in a fruit fly genetics lab in New York City and decides to embark on a fruit fly adventure around New York City. Armed with a vial of fruit flies, Alexis asks both young scientists and by-passers in a downtown farmer’s market about what a fruit fly reminds them of. Through this quest, the fruit fly symbolizes the gap between the perception of science inside and outside of the laboratory. The air travel of the fly from the lab into the street evokes the need to bridge the gap and communicate science to the public. Through the microscope lens, the fruit fly appears human-like – a monstrously beautiful animal that has sacrificed itself in the pursuit of science.

Geological Itinerary or Roman Quarry in Cartagena

Original Title: Itinerario Geológico de las Canteras Romanas de Cartagena
Duration: 25’
Producer: Acción Visual
Director: Carlos Belmonte
Company: Acción Visual
Scientific Field: Environment / Culture / Anthropology / Nature / Earth Science
Year: 2008
Country: Spain

Performing a geological itinerary is like a journey to the past, but a distant past, millions of years ago, when lands and seas were so different to today’s, when humans did not exist. This type of journey does not require traveling large distance or crossing oceans. One only has to move a bit from the city and walk along hills and valleys.

Greening the Federal Government

Original Title: Greening the Federal Government
Duration: 26’ 46’’
Producer: Elizabeth Westrate / Beth Levison
Director: Tad Fettig
Company: kontentreal
Scientific Field:
Year: 2007
Country: USA

Government buildings are not historically associated with sustainability or exquisite design. But the U.S. General Services Administration’s (GSA) Design Excellence program is changing that perception. The program commissioned Pritzker Prize-winning Architect Thom Mayne to design the San Francisco Federal Building, a structure that aims to be the prototype for tomorrow's workplace.

Growing energy

Original Title: Growing Energy
Duration: 26’ 46’’
Producer: Elizabeth Westrate / Beth Levison
Director: Tad Fettig
Company: kontentreal
Scientific Field:
Year: 2007
Country: USA

In response to the oil crisis of the 1970s, Brazil created a domestic ethanol industry that is now thriving on all levels, from production, to distribution at gas stations, to nationwide adoption of flex-fuel cars. The episode examines what we can learn from Brazil’s extraordinary success with ethanol, and whether other countries could follow suit.

Hidden Face of Fear, The

Original Title: The Hidden Face of Fear
Duration: 52’
Producer: Massimo Arvat / Serge Lalou
Director: Enrico Cerasuolo / Sergio Fergnachino
Company: Zenit Arti Audiovisive
Scientific Field: Exact Sciences / Medical / Health
Year: 2008
Country: Italy / France

Since September 11, 2001, New York has become the center of a new epidemic of fear and anxiety that has rapidly spread through the western world. Just as fear can spread within a society, so can anxiety spread within our minds. The Hidden Face of Fear recounts the studies of two of the world’s leading experts on fear and memory, Joseph LeDoux and Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel, and the application of their findings on patients at the Center for the Neuroscience of Fear and Anxiety in New York. The film tells three emblematic stories of people suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Panic Disorder: What was the impact of 9/11 on their brains? Why were they more vulnerable than others? Have they been able to overcome fear? The study of individual case histories is the key for the new science of mind to find new psychological and biological ways of coping with fear and anxiety.

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