The Great Famine

The Living

January 2009 •Ukrainian

Tells the story of the tragic events in Ukraine in 1932-33, the genocidal Great Famine or the Holodomor, and one Welshman's attempts to tell the world what was happening.

Blood and Water

September 2007 •English

When the 2004 tsunami hit the coast of Sri Lanka, 65-year-old Anton Ambrose's wife and daughter were killed. "In five minutes," he says, "I lost everything." A year later, Anton returns to Sri Lanka. With him is his nephew, award-winning filmmaker Rohan Fernando. A Tamil, Anton moved to California in the 1970s and became a very successful gynecologist. His daughter, Orlantha, made the opposite journey, returning to Sri Lanka where she ran a non-profit group that gave underprivileged children free violin lessons. Blood and Water is the story of one man's search for meaning in the face of overwhelming loss, but it is also filled with improbable characters, unintentional comedy and situational ironies.

Sea of Lions

February 2023 •Spanish

This documentary captures a deeply personal journey by Argentinian actor and musician, Nicolás Pauls, to the Uruguayan coast. This area hosts two of the world's foremost sea lion colonies. Isla de lobos and Cabo Polonio. A famed sanctuary for hundreds of thousands of sea lions. Pauls presents the two sides of the complex conflict between the local artisanal fisherman, struggling to earn their living and the sea lions who risk their survival in leaving the boundaries of the island.

The Year Earth Changed

April 2021 •English

Never-before-seen footage shows how our living in lockdown opened the door for nature to bounce back and thrive. Across the seas, skies, and lands, Earth found its rhythm when we came to a stop.

Been Here Stay Here

November 2024 •English

For generations, fishermen have made their home on Tangier Island, in the heart of the Chesapeake Bay on the east coast of the US. Two-thirds of the island has disappeared over the last 150 years, and local people are concerned about rising sea levels—and the lack of progress on reinforcing the sea wall—but the church remains the bedrock of this small, close-knit community.

Im Wald der wilden Bienen

January 2022 •German

Filomena

March 2021 •Spanish

The Filomena snowstorm in central Spain was undoubtedly exceptional. Its return period in many places exceeded half a century, particularly in Madrid. Despite accurate weather forecasts, Filomena brought roads, public transport, health centers, and other basic services in Madrid to a standstill. What went wrong in the management of this weather event?

Untenable Pantanal

November 2024 •Portuguese

Luciano Candisani, award-winning Brazilian photographer, returns to the Pantanal, the world’s largest floodplain, to document its biodiversity and raise awareness about severe environmental threats. The region faces drastic water flow changes and unprecedented fires, yet Candisani finds hope and resilience amidst the challenges.

Five Days on Lesvos

September 2016 •English

As politicians debate and argue, the men, women and children at the heart of the European immigration wave have found themselves caught in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. On the frontline is the Greek island of Lesvos – the first point of entry into Europe for over half of the refugees. One week at the end of August 2015 marked a tipping point in the crisis. More refugees arrived than ever before, volunteers were inundated and local infrastructure just couldn’t cope; trains were overflowing, refugees were dying in the back of lorries and on beaches, and politicians responded by closing borders and arguing about how to stem the tide of people. Filmed over just five days, this first-hand account of that dramatic week on Lesvos is seen through the eyes of the refugees and volunteers caught in the crisis.

The Great San Francisco Earthquake

October 1988 •English

An account of the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the subsequent effort to rebuild.

Lenin and the Other Story of the Russian Revolution

June 2018 •French

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…

Birds of America

May 2022 •French

In the first half of the 19th century, the French ornithologist Jean-Jacques Audubon travelled to America to depict birdlife along the Mississippi River. Audubon was also a gifted painter. His life’s work in the form of the classic book ‘Birds of America’ is an invaluable documentation of both extinct species and an entire world of imagination. During the same period, early industrialisation and the expulsion of indigenous peoples was in full swing. The gorgeous film traces Audubon’s path around the South today. The displaced people’s descendants welcome us and retell history, while the deserted vistas of heavy industry stretch across the horizon. The magnificent, broad images in Jacques Loeuille’s atmospheric, modern adventure reminds us at the same time how little - and yet how much - is left of the nature that Audubon travelled around in. His paintings of the colourful birdlife of the South still belong to the most beautiful things you can imagine.

The Cost of Cobalt

March 2021 •English

In the cobalt mining areas of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), babies are being born with horrific birth defects. Scientists and doctors are finding increasing evidence of environmental pollution from industrial mining which, they believe, may be the cause of a range of malformations from cleft palate to some so serious the baby is stillborn. More than 60% of the world’s reserves of cobalt are in the DRC and this mineral is essential for the production of electric car batteries, which may be the key to reducing carbon emissions and to slowing climate change. In The Cost of Cobalt we meet the doctors treating the children affected and the scientists who are measuring the pollution. Cobalt may be part of the global solution to climate change, but is it right that Congo’s next generation pay the price with their health? Many are hoping that the more the world understands their plight, the more pressure will be put on the industry here to clean up its act.

A Global Warning?

November 2007 •English

Global warming in context. What the climate of the past tells us about the climate of the future.

The Girl and The Tsunami

November 2021 •Spanish

February 2010. On a remote island in the Pacific Ocean called Juan Fernández, everyone slept in town. But a 12-year-old girl felt a tremor and warned of imminent danger.

Chernobyl 30 Years On: Nuclear Heritage

May 2015 •English

Thirty years after the Chernobyl disaster, which occurred on the night of April 26, 1986, its causes and consequences are examined. In addition, a report on efforts to strengthen the structures covering the core of the nuclear plant in order to better protect the population and the environment is offered.

Atlantis

August 1991 •French

Atmospheric soundtrack follows this compilation of nature footage that focuses on the ocean and various life forms that live, mate and die in it.

Аркаим. Стоящий у солнца

January 2008 •Russian

An Inconvenient Truth

May 2006 •English

A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

Dream of San Juan

February 2013 •Polish

The last representatives of Mixteco culture inhabit a village in the Sierra Madre. Deprived of their identity by modern civilization, they are facing an even bigger threat: a landslide that may destroy the village during the next torrential rains. The mayor tries to prevent the disaster. He wants to invite a geologist, so that the approaching danger can be officially confirmed. But no help is coming and the inhabitants must simply wait for the disaster.