A scenic expedition through majestic volcanoes, seething geysers, powerful waterfalls, threatening fjords and almighty glaciers. Hardly any other country offers such a variety of spectacular forces of nature! We will give you an insight on how it can be that the people of a small, distant island with only a fraction of sunlight in some months are happier than the people in more sun-blessed countries.
Showing1to20of660results
Baby animals beguile with their innocent charm. But while some remain harmless, others have a deep-rooted instinct. It may take weeks or months of training to hone their skills. Their landscapes and lifestyles maybe very different, but these babies are born to hunt.
Countless marine animals frolic on the steep slopes of underwater volcanoes. In many cases, several are rare species not found elsewhere. This is in part due to the fact that plankton clings to the wall and provides the fish with food in abundance. This documentary shows several of these oases and also examines the impact dive tourism has and whether preventive measures can help to maintain them. Nature and underwater filmmaker Rolf Möltgen undertakes dives into the mysterious underwater mountain landscapes with marine scientists from all corners of the globe. This journey takes us to Mexico, to snappers, white-tip reef sharks, Galapagos sharks and giant mantas. We visit the Maldives, Colombia and Costa Rica, where the team documents rare species such as deep sea burbots, small tooth sand tiger and dogfish sharks, in depths of more than 3 metres. The eerie underwater mountain world proves: everyone plays a part in the network of life. Thanks to consistent protective regulations, it has been possible to retain the underwater diversity - especially in the unique oases of the high seas
"Cleaning woman island", concrete castles, Ballermann: Mallorca's image is negatively affected in some respects. The documentary explores the charm of the largest Balearic island beyond the hustle and bustle of tourism and Rambazamba. The "real" Mallorca is best explored through real Majorcans: Manolo Barahona, TV fishing expert from the local island broadcaster IB3, faces the most difficult task of the year. The Raor is in season, the most expensive fish on the island. Manolo is supposed to get him first in front of the camera and then in the pan. There's only one catch, the little fish with the piranha teeth just doesn't want to be on TV. In the first months of the year Mallorca turns into a sea of almond blossoms. There are around seven million almond trees on the island, once planted to replace dead vines. But now also the almond trees are threatened. The fire bacterium continues to spread, especially on the large plantations. The farmer Biel Torrens wants to save Mallorca's almond trees and fruit with a small organic plantation and gentle harvesting methods. He shakes the almonds from the tree by hand instead of using a mechanical vibrator.
The light of the Balearic island of Ibiza is magical and its trademark: The "Island of Light" is tiny compared to its sister island Mallorca, but offers the most beautiful sunsets in the world. That's what they say. They attract sun worshippers and party people from near and far. To the sounds of the famous "Balearic Sound" they turn night into day. This documentary documents the island in the balancing act between luxury yachts and traditions. Hippie culture, celebrities, pine forests, bays with turquoise water and villages with bright white houses: Ibiza has many faces. Mora (80) and Djin (67) have been drawn to the island for 55 years. They are the uncrowned kings of the hippies. But only love, light, air and laziness, these times are also long gone on Ibiza. Mora knits sexy jerseys for young hippies from morning till night. Djin helps her sell at the famous Las Dalias hippie market and works as a construction worker: chilling and no pension in sight. The virgin Carmen is the patron saint of the sailors. On her day of honour, a mass is celebrated in the port city of Eivissa. Afterwards, fishermen carry the Virgin through the narrow streets of Ibiza City down to the quay. And then Carmen sets sail. Several places on Ibiza claim to offer the most beautiful sunset in the world: In front of Cala de Benirrás, the sun sinks right next to the iconic rock Cap Benat, which the locals awefully call "God's Finger". The typical soft beats over the sea sound from almost all the bays and provide deep relaxation worldwide under the term "Balearic Sound". Some of the famous DJs are jetting around the globe for huge fees. But in the small beach bars, the Chiringuitos, the island sound is celebrated further. On the beach of Cala Salada the Brit Joe Burnley has the command over a troop of mermaids. The ladies squeeze into the tight mermaid costume for the good cause. With great grace they swim towards yachts that are forbidden to anchor on sea grass meadows. Charming but unyielding, they point out the offence to the captain and crew a creative environmental action to save the endangered Neptune gas, green lung of the sea and habitat for Ibiza's seahorses. The underwater photographer Manu San Felix is also committed to the endangered seahorses. Using a probe, he maps the coastal area around Ibiza and feeds the data into a GPS app. No skipper should be able to say that he didn't even know that his anchor was clawing into Neptune grass. On land, Manu is dedicated to breeding seahorses. His plan: He wants to expose the animals in the Mediterranean to Ibiza and Formentera in order to secure their population. Garages on the beach? Many bays on the island still have Casetas Varadero, boat garages threatened with decay. Fishermen once built them illegally. The picturesque sheds are therefore only tolerated, but may no longer be restored. The 83-year-old Toni Salvado still drives straight out to sea from his garage. He fishes for his own needs and a few friends, he is
This episode focuses on people from five countries who share a common passion: The production of their own food and food. What culinary treasures are hidden in the different regions, from Spitsbergen to Sweden, Austria, Poland and Chad?
Almost 11000 kilometres lie between the northernmost and southernmost point of the 15th meridian east. Here you will find extreme landscapes such as the shimmering heat of Africa or the eternal cold of northern Scandinavia. Five people from Spitsbergen, Namibia, Slovenia, Germany and Poland dedicate their lives to environmental protection.
As contrasting as the landscapes of the 15th meridian east, so different are its animal inhabitants. What are the living conditions like in the heat of the Namibian Damaraland, in Lusatia or on the coast of Norway? Which challenges do elephants, whales or kingfishers have to master together with their companions from north to south?
The cornfield - just an area for producing food… or a land full of secrets? This doc portrays a little recognized habitat right next door. The spectacular visuals filmed with state of the art equipment introduce the surprisingly large diversity of field inhabitants. We follow a hamster family through a season full of adventures and are drawn into an unknown world – a world of which we thought we knew everything about. In the western industrial nations cornfields and woods take up the greatest proportion of rural land. But how much natural life dwells in a cornfield? Why are some cornfield inhabitants harmful and others useful and what do the colourful flowers at the edge of the field promise us? We follow a hamster family through a season full of adventures and are drawn into an unknown world – a world of which we thought we knew everything about.
On the wild coast of Patagonia, the nature calendar describes the most diverse visiting times of fascinating animals, from the southern right whale and other large whales, via the sea lions and elephant seals up to the orcas and millions of penguins. The encounters with whales and their babies are spectacular. Hardly anywhere else on earth can one experience both the brutal and the delightful sides of nature so vividly and so close. The trip to the hot spots for animal watchers and researchers leads us inter alia to the Caleta Valdez. This is where, during the mating season, the southern elephant seals bring their babies into the world, mate and enjoy a little sunbathing on the beach.
Fjords, glaciers and the highest mountains in the Arctic: East Greenland with its spectacular nature is one of the most sparsely populated regions on earth. The people here live in extreme isolation and depend on helicopter flights for their supplies. Despite harsh conditions, the inhabitants here lovingly maintain their traditions and enjoy their outdoor leisure time even at minus 20 degrees Celsius. The town of Tasiilaq is the "metropolis" with 4,000 inhabitants and offers a very special attraction: the only ski lift on the east coast. Thomas Mikaelsen, the lift attendant, is not to be envied for his job. The only 100 meter long lift comes from Switzerland and is already 20 years old. If Thomas gets the drag lift running at all, it often only lasts for an hour. Then the ski crazy's luck depends on his repair skills. The lift is the only frosty open-air pleasure. For Salo Kunuk his sled dogs are both pleasure and work. He is currently teaching his daughter Karla how to steer a dog sled, private driving lessons from her father, so to speak. Karla will need it, because in the eternal ice the sled is the only means of transportation.
Wide open spaces, water, meadows: The Limfjord stretches through Jutland in Denmark in countless bays, canals and sounds. Mighty water castles, country palaces and magnificent monasteries are enthroned on its shores. It is a rather lonely area, even in high summer it is quiet. This is probably why the people here are so friendly and sociable. Birte, Silla and Bo cycle to their fjord garden project in the harbor of the town of Løgstør to harvest mussels, oysters and seaweed. They think gardening is best in a club. Luckily, Silla, a resourceful tinkerer, has just made another ingenious invention: the mussel washing machine. Cruising the narrow Næssund, a branch of the Limfjord, is the Næssund Ferry, the smallest and oldest car ferry in the area. New on board, and the first and only woman on this ship, is deckhand Lilian Kohler. She is "girl for everything", but wants more, because Lilian is a trained navigator. She is magically drawn to the bridge, but the old captain doesn't think much of retiring ashore.
Wildlife filmmakers often risk life and limb trying to capture unique images of their dangerous protagonists. In the Kruger National Park Josef Jozefowicz steps into a lionesses' den to film her cubs, in Alaska Andreas Kieling mingles with giant elk bulls in order to film them in action, and in Florida his colleague Zoltan Török gets very close to an alligator mother guarding its nest. The life of the film-makers is also threatened by elemental forces, and failing technical equipment: the strong and tearing current of the Yukon River throws Andreas Kieling's boat onto a gravel bank, in the Democratic Republik of Congo camerawoman Heike Grebe is separated from her colleagues in the dense rainforest, in Kamchatka a film team only just escapes a gigantic landslide, and in Finland a hot-air balloon catches fire and becomes the nightmare of Oliver Goetzl and Ivo Nörenberg. The last episode "Wild Moments - Dangerous and Deadly" follows wildlife film-makers on their adventurous journeys throughout the world.
Wildlife filmmakers often risk life and limb trying to capture unique images of their dangerous protagonists. A cunning grizzly grabs a salmon off Andreas Kieling's fishing rod, in the depths of the Amazon River a diving team has a spooky encounter with piranhas, in the Mediterranean Sea the currents nearly push Thomas Behrend into the mouths of angry sperm whales defending a newborn - and cameramen who want to film jaguars in the dense jungle of South America become easy prey for the well camouflaged cats. The life of the film-makers is also threatened by elemental forces and failing technical equipment: In the swamps of North Australia violent storms hold up the crossing of tearing rivers, a volcano in the South Seas spits burning lumps of lava into the base camp, and in Siberia a camera team breaks through the ice and has to camp at minus 30°C in the middle of nowhere. The second episode "Wild Moments - Dangerous and Deadly" follows wildlife-filmmakers on their adventurous journeys throughout the world.
Wildlife film-makers often risk life and limb trying to capture unique images of their dangerous protagonists. In Alaska a cunning grizzly threatens the son of Andreas Kieling, on the remote Wrangel Island in northern-east Siberia his colleague Uwe Anders is taken by surprise by a a polar bear, and off the coast of South Africa a diving-team is unexpectedly surrounded by white sharks. But the life of the film-makers is also threatened by elemental forces, life-threatening diseases and failing technical equipment: Deep in the vast rainforests of West Africa cameraman Klaus Scheurich nearly dies of malaria, and in South India a film team narrowly escapes death in a hot-air balloon accident. But they also meet remarkable people such as a zoo keeper in Cameroon who feels at ease playing with half-grown and adult gorillas - the most powerful of all great apes. The first episode "Wild Moments - Dangerous and Deadly" follows wildlife film-makers on their adventurous journeys throughout the world.
With the aid of modern technology, reveal the unknown behaviour of some unusual species of shark: lemon sharks and their white-tip reef counterparts. Our film trip begins on the Bahamas. To be more precise: in the turquoise-blue waters of the Grand Bahama Bank, in an exactly fixed location. In the spring, 70 – 80 pregnant lemon sharks arrive here. This huge shark population was first discovered just a few years ago by shark researcher, Professor Sam Gruber. Many of the females are tired and rest on the seabed. Pregnant tiger sharks swim in the midst of this group. Without any protection whatsoever, our cameramen shoot their footage, surrounded by sharks and succeed in capturing images hitherto unseen. We continue our journey to Gainesville, Florida, to meet Gordon Hubbell, the leading shark denture expert with the world's largest shark denture collection. He knows everything about the evolutionary history of the lemon sharks, in addition to those of the white-tip reef variety off Cocos Island, Costa Rica. Here, we encounter large schools of fish, unprecedented numbers of stingrays, as well as hammerhead sharks. However, it is the white-tip reek sharks that make the biggest impression. Their performance begins late at night. Marauding, they patrol in large groups through the reefs and hunt everything that moves. Scales and dead prey fish float above the reef – a welcoming change of diet for the ubiquitous barracudas.
We are on the verge of a new age of exploration: besides the plans of NASA and other space agencies, over the next years also privately financed teams are going to send unmanned vehicles to the Moon. The goal is to find a cheap and efficient way to travel there on a regular basis, and in the long term to build a permanent human base.
The Nordland Railway in Norway, travels from Trondheim through the isolated regions of Trendelag and Nordland. After Mo I Rana, it traverses the Arctic Circle and ends in the northern Norwegian town of Bodø. The railway covers a distance of some 729 kilometres, passing by dense, snow-covered forests, frozen fjords and snow-capped mountains. Temperatures of sometimes minus 30 degrees are quite normal here for months, on many days there is no more than five hours of daylight. Kindergarten teacher Kaia Aarstrand und her husband, Bjørnar, a technician for the municipality, live with their four boys in Aursletta, deep within the Vistenfjord, far away from civilization. All made possible by the Norwegian state: electricity, mobile phone connection and a speedboat that brings the family to school and to work. But when the Vistenfjord freezes up, the family is isolated for days. Tormod Schøning spends hours on end on his Saltfjellet whenever snowstorms occur and he has to clear the only road connection between North and South Norway with his snow plough. For the duration of his shifts, Tormod lives in the snow plough station.
This foray through northern realms of our planet above the polar circle takes us to a part of our world especially affected by climate change. The often-cited adaptability of animals could also enable them to survive under new conditions. The camera team made this foray through the polar region, from Canada to Norway, to document that, which in the opinion of many nature researchers, will no longer be visible in 30 to 50 years' time. Following the observation of ice bear mother with her young in Canada's Wapusk National Park at Hudson Bay, is a herd of harp seals on the ice during the breeding season. The Arctic Ocean ringed seals in Hudson Bay, on the other hand, prefer solitude. Should the offspring be born in an extremely cold night, they often freeze to death. Their bodies sink to the seabed at the beginning of spring when the pack ice thaws. Scavengers like the rare Greenland shark, who sees them as a welcome snack, quickly eats them. Underwater footage of this process also attempted by our camera team, very rarely succeeds.
In northern Argentina, the world-famous Tren a las Nubes - the cloud train - crosses dizzying viaducts and deep valleys. At an altitude of over 4000 meters, what was once the highest railway runs past cactus forests and into the driest desert in the world. A technical feat in the Andes and a breathtaking ride through spectacular scenery.In northern Argentina, the world-famous Tren a las Nubes - the cloud train - crosses dizzying viaducts and deep valleys. At an altitude of over 4000 meters, what was once the highest railway runs past cactus forests and into the driest desert in the world. A technical feat in the Andes and a breathtaking ride through spectacular scenery.
The Ferrocarril del Sur, one of the highest train routes on earth, runs right through the mountains of Peru. To this day, it is considered a miracle in the world of railways. The rails not only lead to the famous ruined city of Machu Picchu but connect the ancient Inca capital of Cusco with Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca and the gleaming white city of Arequipa. A train journey with the Andes Explorer through a grandiose landscape and an undeveloped and inaccessible area.
Showing1to20of660results
