
05 Dec 2003

Bodysong
Documentary footage from various sources, set to music. Showing the whole of human life, from birth to death and beyond.

Photo sequence of the rare transit of Venus over the face of the Sun, one of the first chronophotographic sequences. In 1873, P.J.C. Janssen, or Pierre Jules César Janssen, invented the Photographic Revolver, which captured a series of images in a row. The device, automatic, produced images in a row without human intervention, being used to serve as photographic evidence of the passage of Venus before the Sun, in 1874.

05 Dec 2003

Documentary footage from various sources, set to music. Showing the whole of human life, from birth to death and beyond.

14 Oct 1993

A breathtaking adventure across five continents and through time to reveal nature's most vital secret. Watch a flying fox gorge itself on a midnight snack of figs. Climb into the prickly jaws of insect-eating plants. Witness a mantis disguised as a flower petal lure its prey to doom.

03 Nov 2023

Finnish filmmaker and artist Sami van Ingen is a great-grandson of documentary pioneer Robert Flaherty, and seemingly the sole member of the family with a hands-on interest in continuing the directing legacy. Among the materials he found in the estate of Robert and Frances Flaherty’s daughter Monica were the film reels and video tapes detailing several years of work on realising her lifelong dream project: a sound version of her parents’ 1926 docu-fiction axiom, Moana: A Romance of the Golden Age.

06 Oct 2009

In 1858 Charles Darwin struggles to publish one of the most controversial scientific theories ever conceived, while he and his wife Emma confront family tragedy.

13 Nov 2005

William Shatner presents a light-hearted look at how the "Star Trek" TV series have influenced and inspired today's technologies, including: cell phones, medical imaging, computers and software, SETI, MP3 players and iPods, virtual reality, and spaceship propulsion.

17 Sep 2022

At the edge of our solar system supposedly lies an immense planet. Five to ten times the size of the Earth. Several international teams of scientists have been competing in a frantic race to detect it, in uncharted territories, far beyond Neptune. The recent discovery of several dwarf planets, with intriguing trajectories, have put astronomers on the trail of this mysterious planet. Why is this enigmatic planet so difficult to detect? What would a ninth planet teach us about our corner of the universe? Could it help us unlock some of the mysteries of our solar system?

11 Jun 1922

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

26 Nov 2002

No overview found

18 Mar 2025

The Impressionists are the most popular group in art history – millions flock every year to marvel at their masterpieces. But, to begin with, they were scorned, penniless outsiders. 1874 was the year that changed everything; the first Impressionists, “hungry for independence”, broke the mould by holding their own exhibition outside official channels. Impressionism was born and the art world was changed forever. What led to that first groundbreaking show 150 years ago? Who were the maverick personalities that wielded their brushes in such a radical and provocative way? The spectacular Musée d’Orsay exhibition brings fresh eyes to this extraordinary tale of passion and rebellion. The story is told not by historians and curators but in the words of those who witnessed the dawn of Impressionism: the artists, press and people of Paris, 1874.

01 Jan 2006

Jack Parsons: Jet Propelled Antichrist is a story about one of the fathers of modern rocketry and a founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which as part of NASA still leads the way in the development of rockets and the exploration of space. He was also an occultist, a sorcerer and a magus. The infamous magician Aleister Crowley the self-proclaimed Great Beast called him son. He called himself ‘The Antichrist’ and was repeatedly investigated by the FBI. At the age of 38 Parsons died in a mysterious explosion that made headlines around the US. Officially it was a tragic scientific accident — other interpretations of the event persist to this day.

14 Mar 1894

The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.
01 Oct 1909
On a market day in Kernascleden, two Breton women exchange their hair for a few coins. The hair becomes hairpieces. Last scene, an elegant Parisian removes her hat and exposes her generous wig skillfully coiffed.

15 Oct 1888

A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.

06 Oct 2017

The first feature from Alison McAlpine is a dialogue with the heavens—in this case, the heavens above the Andes and the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, where she alights on the desert- and mountain-dwelling astronomers, fishermen, miners, and cowboys who live their lives with reverence and awe for the skies.

01 Jun 2008

Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science.

01 Jan 2005

In The Womb is a 2005 National Geographic Channel documentary that focus on studying and showing the development of the embryo in the uterus. The show makes extensive use of Computer-generated imagery to recreate the real stages of the process.

01 Jan 1955

Gilles Groulx's first film shot in 1955 with a camera borrowed from his brother and edited during his spare time when he worked as an editor at the Radio-Canada news service a few years before he joined the NFB. Silent film, presented as its author left it, where the soil and the dialectic of Groulx's work are already there: documentary realism, the social space to be explored, daily life, the relationship between individual and society, social disparities, the consumer society, seduction and happiness.

18 Oct 2016

Meet Nikola Tesla, the genius engineer and tireless inventor whose technology revolutionized the electrical age of the 20th century. Although eclipsed in fame by Edison and Marconi, it was Tesla's vision that paved the way for today's wireless world. His fertile but undisciplined imagination was the source of his genius but also his downfall, as the image of Tesla as a mad scientist came to overshadow his reputation as a brilliant innovator.

23 Sep 2000

This feature-length documentary is a portrait of eclipse chasers, people for whom solar eclipses - among nature's more spectacular phenomena – are a veritable obsession. The film follows 4 of them as they travel incredible distances to witness the last total eclipse of the millennium as it sweeps eastward across Europe to India. At various points along the way enthusiasts Alain Cirou in France, Paul Houde in Austria, Olivier Staiger in Germany and Debasis Sarkar in India offer their impressions of the historic event.
31 Dec 1999
A documentary about the cultural effect of film censorship, focusing on the tumultuous times of the teens and early 1920s in America.