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Our Frozen Planet

   2022    Nature
Our frozen planet is changing. In this final episode, we meet the scientists and people dedicating their lives to understanding what these changes mean, not just for the animals and people who live there, but for the world as a whole.
Our journey begins in the Arctic, where every summer huge quantities of ice calve from the edges of Greenland’s melting glaciers. On top of the ice cap itself, glaciologist Alun Hubbard descends into a moulin to try to understand the mechanisms that are driving this historic loss of ice.
Elsewhere in the Arctic, it’s not just land ice that is disappearing. In the Gulf of St Lawrence, Canada, biologists are trying to find out how the loss of sea ice will impact the lives of baby harps. In Arctic Russia, with the loss of summer sea ice, more and more polar bears are arriving on the island of Wrangel. Here, a local ranger and scientists are braving the hungry bears to assess their future survival.
Loss of sea ice impacts not just wildlife but people too. In the remote community of Qaanaaq, Greenland, local Inuit hunters are finding the ice too dangerous to travel and hunt on, risking their traditional way of life. And these changes happening in the Arctic have the potential to affect people far beyond. On Alaska’s open tundra, bubbling lakes hint at the gases being released from the previously frozen soil, including the potent greenhouse gas methane.
There is one place where the full scale of a melting Arctic can be best witnessed - from space. Based in the International Space Station, astronaut Jessica Meir looks down at forest fires across Europe and reflects how our changing weather patterns are interconnected.
Rapid ice loss is also happening across the high mountains of the planet’s continents. Glaciologist Hamish Pritchard uses a sophisticated helicopter-strung radar system to try to quantify how much ice is left in the previously uncharted glaciers of the Himalayas. It’s important as, downstream, some 1.2 billion people rely on glacial meltwater as their primary source of fresh water.
Finally, in Antarctica, we meet Bill Fraser, who has dedicated 45 years of his life to studying the Adelie penguin. Over this period, he has witnessed changes in weather conditions and the extinction of entire colonies. These ‘canaries in the coal mine’ are a sign that all is not well, even in the remotest place on earth. And changes here have the potential to affect all of us, so an international group of scientists is on an urgent mission to assess the stability of a huge body of ice known as the Thwaites ice shelf. If this plug of ice melts and slips into the ocean, it will raise global sea levels, impacting coastal communities across the planet.
The unprecedented changes our scientists are witnessing may be profound, but there is hope that, through a combination of technology and willpower, there is still time to save what remains of our frozen planet.
Series: Frozen Planet II

Good Night Oppy

   2022    Technology
The film follows Opportunity, the Mars exploration rover launched in 2003, affectionately dubbed Oppy by her creators and scientists at NASA. Oppy was originally expected to live for only 90 days but she ultimately explored Mars for nearly 15 years.
With access to archival and interview footage with scientists and engineers and re-creations of the rover's treks over the Martian landscape in search of water, we will explore her groundbreaking journey on Mars and the remarkable bond forged between a robot and her humans creators millions of miles away. The narrative interrogates the significance of Opportunity's endurance for the future of interstellar discovery.

Troubled Waters

   2022    History
When he killed Mehmed’s messengers, it was a message from Vlad Dracula that he would not pay his yearly dues anymore and it was clear that Vlad wanted a war against the Otoman Empire. Mehmed II sends Mara to coax Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus into an alliance. Vlad Dracula’s army was less than 30,000 men, but he invaded Bulgaria and started killing Mehmed’s men in 1462. He stole the Ottomans’ uniforms for his further attacks on the empire. Vlad also destroyed many ports that were under Sultan Mehmed II on the Danube.
Mehmed had to cross the Danube in order to reach the capital city of Târgoviște and defeat Vlad. The sultan faced the challenge of transporting 100,000 men across the river. Along with men, he had to transport cannons and horses too. The first unit to cross the river Danube included Mahmud Pasha, who was the most trusted man of Mehmed II. An epic battle along the Danube River looms, and Vlad has the upper hand.
Series: Rise of Empires 2: Mehmed vs Vlad

Brothers No More

   2022    History
Vlad Dracula presses an increasingly desperate guerrilla campaign from the shadows, hoping to demoralize the Ottomans and slow their march north. After chasing Vlad for two weeks, sultan Mehmed II and his invading army find themselves caught in a nightmare come to life deep within the Wallachian forest. Many legends have arisen out of the invasion of Wallachia in 1462. One speaks of Vlad Dracula launching a biological attack against the Ottomans to slow their march to his capital city, Târgovişte. Vlad opened his prisons and released hardened criminals to go amongst the Ottomans with tuberculosis and bubonic plague so that they could infect the enemies.
Vlad Dracula also had carried out a scorched-earth policy against Mehmed II. Along with his hit-and-run campaign from the shadows has left the sultan's troops on edge. As Mehmed's army closes on Târgovişte, tensions flare in the Ottoman camp, where food and water are in increasingly short supply. But Vlad had nowhere to rely on food for himself either and there was nowhere to go anymore. He became a prisoner of his own scorched-earth policy. Radu Dracula closes in to take Princess Anastasia hostage. Anastasia commits suicide when he reach her at Poenari castle.
Series: Rise of Empires 2: Mehmed vs Vlad

If These Walls Could Sing

   2022    Art
For more than 90 years, Abbey Road Studios has been at the heart of the music industry. In this personal film of memory and discovery, Mary McCartney guides us through nine decades to see and experience the creative magic that makes it the most famous and longest-running studio in the world. From classical to pop, film scores to hip-hop, ‘If These Walls Could Sing’ explores the breadth, diversity and ingenuity of Abbey Road Studios.
The doc marks the first time Abbey Road has opened its doors to a feature doc, and will be the centrepiece of the legendary studio’s 90th anniversary celebrations. Billed as the untold story of the studio, the film will feature an all-star cast of interviews, and intimate access to the premises.

To Kill a Tiger

   2022    History
(Click CC for subtitles) Ranjit, a farmer in India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the victim of a brutal gang rape. His decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented. Nominated for Best Documentary Award, the film has an undeniable and unshakable power. It is one of those documentaries where anyone who watches it won’t be the same person by the end as they were when it started.
To Kill a Tiger offers the viewer remarkable access to village life, not just in the modest home where Ranjit’s family make roti on an open fire, but in the fields where they herd goats and collect water from a pump. The camera finds quiet details, like Ranjit’s daughter carefully weaving ribbons into her hair. Women and men insist that the community, not the criminal court, should solve the issue with a forced marriage—to remove the ‘stain on her’. The men become increasingly hostile—to the family, and eventually to the film crew itself.
Frozen Planet

Frozen Planet

2011  Nature
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

2006  History
Secrets of the Octopus

Secrets of the Octopus

2024  Nature
Conquistadors

Conquistadors

2002  History