Le Peuple Migrateur (Winged Migration)

Documentary on the migratory patterns of birds, shot over the course of three years on all seven continents.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301727/

Islam Empire of Faith

The Making of Islam: Empire of Faith
by Robert Gardner, Producer

The production of Islam: Empire of Faith was a big challenge from the beginning, simply because it covered more than a thousand years of history and culture, and a very large part of the world.

But we really wanted to push beyond the conventional form of historical documentaries, which have depended on pans and tilts of still pictures, supplemented with landscapes and interviews. We wanted to find a way to use the visual techniques usually reserved for fiction motion pictures to tell a story of great scope that took place in pre-photographic history. This meant the project would require very large scale costumed re-enactments and equipment far beyond the ordinary documentary production package of camera, zoom lens, tripod and small light-kit.

We knew that we had to find a way to present images of cultural history — both re-enacted scenes and contemporary scenes of Islamic architecture and city life — in a way that would evoke the past, but maintain a sense of authenticity. The scenes would be dream-like and impressionistic but would still give viewers a sense that what they were seeing was accurate in historical terms.

http://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/film.html

Trinity And Beyond – IMAX

Trinity and Beyond is an unsettling yet visually fascinating documentary presenting the history of nuclear weapons development and testing between 1945 until 1963. Narrated by William Shatner and featuring an original score performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the film reveals unreleased and classified government footage depicting in graphic detail these powerful and awesome weapons. Many scenes were restored with a process created to make the footage usable.

Director/producer Peter Kuran, traveled throughout the U.S. to locate footage that includes bombs being suspended by balloon, exploding under the ocean, being shot from a cannon and detonated in outer space.

Search for Alien Planets

Discovery Channel brings viewers on a virtual mission of the future. Right now, the search for planets with “life signatures” goes on. These efforts are global, and experts tell us on camera how this search for life is progressing around the world. No longer just the domain of science fiction, what could alien life really looks like?

 

Genghis Khan – BBC

Documentary looking at the Secret History of the Mongols, said to have been written by Genghis Khan’s adopted son, which reveals a very different man to the brutal butcher of Western legend. Not just a womaniser, but a devoted husband. Not just a warrior, but a politician. Not just a conqueror, but a legislator. A man who wanted the lessons he had learnt – good and bad – to be passed onto his successors. Within its pages lies the inside story of how an illiterate nomad inspired his successors to conquer the largest land empire the world has ever seen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00790p2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/timewatch/diary_genghis_01.shtml

End of Suburbia

Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream

Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years, so too has the suburban way of life become embedded in the American consciousness.

Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream.

http://www.endofsuburbia.com/

Elegant Universe 3

Elegant Universe 3.1 The Wild West of Physics.mov
Elegant Universe 3.2 The Potential of Strings.mov
Elegant Universe 3.3 Getting into One Theory.mov
Elegant Universe 3.4 Parallel Universes.mov
Elegant Universe 3.5 Escaping Gravity.mov
Elegant Universe 3.6 Riddle of the Big Bang.mov
Elegant Universe 3.7 Signs of Strings.mov
Elegant Universe 3.8 Too Elegant to be Wrong.mov

http://video.barnesandnoble.com/DVD/Nova-Physics-The-Elegant-Universe-Beyond/e/783421407596

http://www.documentarydish.com/Elegant_Universe_Hour_3