Full list of films

1. 1 Minute of Astronomy

Original Title: 1 Minuto de Astronomia

Duration: 13x01’

Producer: Science Office / Duvideo

Director: Vanessa Fernandes

Company: Duvideo

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy

Year: 2009

Country: Portugal

Series of 13 episodes produced for television. In each of the one minute episodes, a Portuguese celebrity explains a concept of astronomy, such as black holes, dark matter, eclipses, and comets. The series 1 Minute of Astronomy was aired daily, several times a day, on the Portuguese Public National Television (RTP), on its several channels, during November 2009.

A website was created to accompany the TV series, where the episodes can also be viewed. 13 Portuguese professional astronomers joined in by writing a popular astronomy articles about each of the themes of the TV episodes, allowing the public to find more information about the scientific topics discussed in the episodes.

2. 400 Years of the Telescope

Original Title: 400 Years of the Telescope

Duration: 56’46’’

Producer: Kris Koenig

Director: Kris Koenig

Company: Interstellar Studios

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy

Year: 2009

Country: USA

Beautifully photographed in 4K resolution digital cinematography, the film is a visually stunning chronicle of the history of the telescope from the time of Galileo, its profound impact upon the science of astronomy, and how both have shaped the way we view ourselves in the midst of an infinite universe.

The Interstellar Studios production team traveled the globe to interview astronomers and cosmologists from the world’s renowned universities and observatories. They journeyed across five continents to write the story of the past and the future of telescopes, astronomy, and our ever-changing perception of the cosmos.

Astronomers explain concepts ranging from Galileo’s act of revealing the telescopic cosmos to humanity and challenging religious teachings of the day, to the latest discoveries in space.

On the horizon, viewers learn of telescopes the size of stadiums. With unprecedented resolution and light gathering, these enormous new instruments will look back to the initial moments of the Big Bang and – like Galileo’s first telescopic observations – will reshape our model of the universe.

3. Adventure Research: Seeking a Formula for God

Original Title: Abenteuer Forschung: Auf der Suche nach der Gottesformel

Duration: 30’04’’

Producer: Christiane Götz-Sobel

Director: Tobias Schultes in coorporation with Dirk Beppler and Iris Zink

Company: ZDF

Scientific Field: Science Religion

Year: 2009

Country: Germany

In former times inexplicable phenomena were attributed to the “powers that be”. The heavens were thought to be the abode of the gods. It was from there that they sent their coded messages and determined the course of things. And then the sciences conquered the Earth: the boundaries of knowledge were – and still are – a challenge for scientists. Could it be that things for which we have hitherto had no explanation can actually be grasped using scientific methods?

During the 15th –16th century scientists found themselves in conflict with the Catholic Church. The Church claimed for itself the right to interpret the universe, but the observations of astronomers revealed a different world view. There was no room left in heaven for the saints and a divine Creator. By exploring the depths of space, have the sciences banished God? Have they made Him superfluous? Can the sciences and religion be reconciled at all?

And so, for example, the conflict continues to rumble on between the supporters of Darwin’s theory of evolution and the disciples of the story of Creation as it is related in the Bible. Agreement seems as far away as ever. And people attempt to this day to reconcile scientific knowledge with their religious convictions. Is that possible? And: what is the basis for the faith of so many people, given that the scientific interpretation of the world is the one that continues to dominate our everyday lives?

“Abenteuer Forschung” (The Adventure of Science) shows the methods scientists use to investigate the basis of faith. Archaeologists and materials scientists seek the origins of the Bible and test the traditional stories. Neurophysiologists use the latest technology to try to find the “seat” of religion in the brain. Prof. Harald Lesch examines critically both the results and their significance. And at the same time, scientists are endeavouring to solve the ultimate riddles of the universe, right back to the Big Bang.

4. Adventure Research: Unrecognised Treasures – Every Species counts

Original Title: Abenteuer Forschung: Verkannte Schätze: Jede Art zählt

Duration: 27’59’’

Producer: Christiane Götz-Sobel

Director: Eva Rauert in coorporation with Christine Haak

Company: ZDF

Scientific Field: Wildlife

Year: 2009

Country: Germany

Especially in times of the economic crisis one concentrates worldwide on industrial production and economic growth, mostly at the expense of natural conservation and protection of endangered species. Can we afford this? Experts are covinced that the value of nature is underestimated. In contrast, biodiversity protects economic stability and represents a value of milliards.

Scientists estimate that up to 20 million animals, plants, fungi and bacterial species create an unbelievable variety of the earth. In the past, natural disasters brought the biodiversity already several times to the edge of the abyss. Over and over again nature has recovered. However, today the destruction of the species has reached a new quality: More than six billion people have a share in the destruction of the biological inheritance of earth. Every day approximately up to 130 species get lost - for good: The treasures whose value is underestimated.

In “Adventure Research: Unrecognised Treasures - Every Species counts“Professor Harald Lesch explains astonishing developments and projects which show how business developments and the protection of biodiversity can be brought in harmony.

5. Aedes Aegypti and Aedes Albopictus – A Threat in the Tropics

Original Title: Aedes Aegypti e Aedes Albopictus – Uma Ameaça nos Tropicos

Duration: 21’

Producer: Genilton José Vieira / Leonardo Perim

Director: Genilton José Vieira

Company: Production and Image Treatment Service of Oswaldo Cruz Institute / FIOCRUZ

Scientific Field: Biodiversity / Health Education

Year: 2009

Country: Brazil

Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus - A Threat in the Tropics" It aims to contribute to a better understanding of the dispersal of both species across the continents and their role as transmitters of viruses, giving a special focus on dengue, which in recent years has caused several epidemics in many tropical countries. The documentary is composed of real and virtual images of mosquitoes, showing the continent of origin, their distribution throughout the world, their morphological characteristics, their eating habits, their feeding mechanisms, their breeding and the environment they live in.

6. Ait Bouguemez, a Valley of Traditions

Original Title: Ait Bouguemez , une Vallée Inoubliable

Duration: 52’

Producer: SZ Productions / Arte France

Director: Maryse Bergonzat

Company: Arte France

Scientific Field: Environment

Year: 2009

Country: France

In the Grand Atlas Mountains in Morocco, the Ait Bouguemez Valley is well-known for its great natural beauty, which is conserved by its inhabitants.

This ancient community living in such a remote area seems to hold the key to environmental sustainability and biodiversity.

The extreme weather conditions have pushed the farmers to share and maintain the local resources such as pasture and forests with a communal agricultural management known as agdal.

Researchers from the French “Institut de Recherche pour le Développement” and Morocco were interested in this Berber concept which has existed for millennia. Together they have studied the ancient techniques in order to be used by coming generations.

7. Aliens of the Amazon

Original Title: Aliens of the Amazon

Duration: 2x45’

Producer: Thierry Berrod

Director: Quincy Russell

Company: Mona Lisa Production

Scientific Field: Environment / Wildlife / Nature / Exact Sciences

Year: 2009

Country: France

The Membracide insect family is roughly unknown to us. However, these neotropical treehoppers are probably the most astonishing creatures ever concocted by Nature! Some people view them as nothing more than miniature aliens; others consider them to be true masterpieces of biodiversity. In either case, with their weird and wonderful shapes, they are a source of bewilderment for the scientific community.

Be it a whim of Nature or an extreme case of mimicry, with their impressive forehead protrusions, they look like living sculptures. They resemble something straight out of a Sci-Fi movie, and yet they are well and truly real – tactile inhabitants of the treetops and the various strata of the tropical rainforest.

Because these insects are so incredibly rare and hard to find, they have never been studied, photographed or filmed – that is, up until now. In the past, in-the-field observations have revealed certain aspects of their behavior but there is no trace of any former in-depth research into these creatures.

8. Aliens of the Deep

Original Title: Aliens des fons Marins

Duration: 52’

Producer: MC4 / IDEACOM

Director: Jérôme Julienne

Company: MC4 / IDEACOM

Scientific Field: Nature / Wildlife

Year: 2010

Country: France / Canada

In the depths of our seas lives a monster with two enormous eyes that take up a quarter of its weight, 9 brains, 3 hearts and 8 legs. This carnivorous predator can change shape and color at will, walk on land and sea, and cross through fire. It can grow over five metres long and is one of the smartest beings on the planet. Thanks to IQ tests, scientists will prove that octopus learn fast alone and hand down ability. Their conquest of the depths has started…

9. Amazing Plants

Original Title: Amazing Plants

Duration: 50’

Producer: Martin Willis

Director: Heinz von Matthey

Company: Parthenon Entertainment / Matthey Film GmBH

Scientific Field: Nature

Year: 2009

Country: United Kingdom

Amazing Plants gives an insight into the fascinating world of plants. The plants which we have taken for granted are beginning to make themselves noticed. By feeling, hearing, smelling and tasting, these plants continue on their journey through the undergrowth, in a bid for survival. Scientists and experts reveal the skills and tricks that plants use to survive, with predatory plants using every trick in the book to entice a meal, including sniffing out their prey. Exploring the defences plants employ to save themselves from harm, featuring the amazing acacia, which commands an ant army to fend off unwanted visitors. Experts also investigate how human intervention affects the plants, including a fascinating look at how technological advances could change the future of farming.

With the latest time lapse, high speed and HD footage, the most fascinating secrets of the world of plants are uncovered, with pioneering experiments revealing the truth about Amazing Plants.

10. Ancient Astronomers of Timbuktu, The

Original Title: The Ancient Astronomers of Timbuktu

Duration: 60’

Producer: Sharron Hawkes

Director: Guy Spiller

Company: Dogged Films

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy

Year: 2009

Country: South Africa

Guided by astrophysicist, Dr Thebe Medupe, a group of modern scientists engage in the first exploration of the scientific contents of the manuscript archives of Timbuktu.

The film reveals the painstaking work done by conservators and manuscript owners who face the daunting task of conserving the brittle and damaged manuscripts before this valuable history is lost forever in the sands of the Sahara.

Dr Medupe works together with Islamic Science Historian Dr Petra Schmidl on deciphering the meaning and significance of these fascinating papers. With comment from Islamic Science Historians Prof George Saliba and Dr John Steele we reveal the historical background to the information found in the manuscripts and the relevance of Timbuktu’s Islamic history.

Throughout the documentary recreations of life in medieval Timbuktu illustrate and enhance discoveries – bringing to life the ancient work of these African academics.

By using modern ‘state of the art’ digital technology we reveal the cosmology of an ancient time bringing the archives from sandy obscurity to global cyber access.

11. Around the World, around the Sky

Original Title: Tours du Monde, tours du Ciel

Duration: 106’

Producer: ARKAB Production / Arte France

Director: Robert Pansard Besson

Company: Arte France

Scientific Field: Technologies

Year: 2009

Country: France

Taking up the title of a ten films series on the history of astronomic observatories from Antiquity until today broadcasted by Arte in 1990, this project deals indeed with astronomy and observatories, but today, with a new story and a new treatment.

It is an exploration journey around the world, encountering astronomic observatories that are working today, in order to understand their observations and discoveries of the universe. This journey around the world comes then along with another one, a journey around the sky, all the more since we will also encounter special observatories.

So, it is a journey around the world and around the sky, but at the same time a journey with astronomers from all around the world, in science, technique, history, and philosophy.

12. Asteroid Impact

Original Title: Asteroid Impact

Duration: 50’

Producer: James Reed

Director: Matthew Huntley

Company: TV6 Limited

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy

Year: 2009

Country: United Kingdom

On 6th October 2008, for the first time in history, scientists observed an asteroid approaching Earth on a collision course. As they struggled to determine where and when it would hit, they realised it was heading for the desert of Sudan in North Africa – and would arrive just twenty hours after it was first spotted. Further calculations revealed the asteroid was small – but still no one knew what to expect, and warnings went out around the world. But the few inhabitants in the impact zone, out in the desert with no communications, went about their lives completely unaware of the threat.

In the event the object, by now known as TC3, exploded at a height of 23 miles with the force of a small atomic bomb. It was seen by the pilots of a KLM 747 nearby. Local people thought they were under attack, but no one was hurt. For the scientific community, however, this was just the beginning. They knew this was a unique opportunity: if they could find fragments of the asteroid they could relate its appearance in space to the material it was made of. This would allow the compostion of other asteroids to be predicted from their appearance – which could be vital in defending ourselves against a future asteroid threat.

Dr Peter Jenniskens, an asteroid expert from the SETI Institute and NASA Ames, immediately decided to go to Sudan to hunt for samples. He had no idea if any fragments would have survived the explosion, but he set about organising an expedition with the astronomy professor from Khartoum University, Dr Muawia Shaddad. Together with 50 of his students they journeyed into the desert and combed the impact zone, forming a human chain half a mile long, searching for pieces of the fragmented asteroid called meteorites.

In the event they found a total of 280 meteorites. Allowing them to build up a picture of the asteroid. And it was a strange object, a fragile mixture of different kinds of rock, some of them of extremely low density. But they were puzzled by the distribution of the meteorites – they seemed to be south of the track NASA had predicted for the asteroid. This was a concern since these predictions are vital for dealing with future asteroid impacts.

They agreed to collaborate on the investigation of the pieces – and some were shipped to the US for analysis. Dr Andrew Steele of the Carnegie Institution of Washington established from the carbon content that TC3 had been formed in an enormous asteroid collision. And Dr Janice Bishop from the SETI Institute and NASA Ames studied the light reflected from the samples, and determined that TC3 was an asteroid of a certain type known as F Class – a key result. All F class asteroids are likely to have a similar fragile composition to TC3. By tracing back the orbits of TC3 over millions of years they could even identify another F Class asteroid called KU2 which may have been formed in the same collision. KU2’s orbit is likely to develop like TC3’s and eventually put it on a collision course with Earth – but KU2 is massive, comparable to the asteroid which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. It will need watching closely.

Dr Mark Boslough from the Sandia National Laboratories is perhaps the world’s leading expert on asteroid explosions. He studied the TC3 explosion, and modelled it on the Sandia super computers, to get a better understanding of exactly what had happened. He concludes that it was the extreme fragility of the object that casued it to explode so high in the atmosphere. And its complex structure caused not one, but a series of explosions. These factors go some way to explaining why the pieces were not along the predicted track – and Boslough is confident the track predictions were accurate.

Nonetheless, it’s clearly vital to know what an asteroid is made of if we’re planning a defence. Dr David Dearborn from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is sure he could almost always come up with a defence strategy using a nuclear detonation to deflectt an incoming asteroid – but he demonstrates with some rocks and a rifle how important it is to establish the composition first. Dr David Morrison from NASA Ames thinks we should be planning a mission now to investigate Apophis, an asteroid big enough to devastate a whole country, which has a small chance of hitting Earth in 2036.

But TC3 also revealed something else important. It showed that small asteroids, much smaller than Apophis, could be detected by the sky survey telescopes. And it’s a small asteroid we’re most likely to have to worry about: there are thousands of them. They might only be detected with a few days notice on their final approach to Earth, but if plans are drawn up in advance, that should give enough time to evacuate any populated area in danger. Thanks to TC3, we now know we can see these asteroids coming.

13. Bees Extinction, Solving the Mystery

Original Title: Bees Extinction, Solving the Mystery

Duration: 52’

Producer: Thierry Berrod

Director: Natacha Calestreme

Company: Mona Lisa Production

Scientific Field: Environment / Wildlife / Nature / Exact Sciences / Climate Change and Effects

Year: 2009

Country: France

An acute analysis of an international alarming phenomenon, this gripping film is conceived like a police investigation, aiming at unfolding a criminal mystery.

Here, the inquiry is about the bees that are vanishing from the face of the planet. It is a spreading disaster, first spotted November 2006 in the USA, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Poland, UK and France.

Losses sometimes reach 90% of a beehive population. In a world where a 153 billion dollars share of agriculture depends on bees to pollinate, the food industry is starting to worry.

From witness to witness, viewers collect and assemble the first pieces of information. Every scenario is examined in an attempt at understanding the phenomenon.

Is it the Varroa (an acarid), the Nosema (a fungus), a virus, the pesticides, the impoverishment of the floral areas, the beekeeper's methods, the magnetic waves?

As the investigation continues, renowned scientists from all around the world (USA, Switzerland, France and Germany) are invited to answer these questions and clarify this obscure situation.

Throughout the film, the secrecy surrounding this phenomenon slowly becomes clearer, as viewers are careening from one fascinating and frightening discovery to another. Even the often quoted "multifactorial factor" hides a gruesome revelation: mankind is fully responsible for bees' extinction, pathologies are just consequences. Our environmental conditions are mass-murdering the bees.

As a conclusion, the film highlights how little beehive citizens have become sentinels of our health, and how much we need to worry about our home planet.

14. Big Bang, My Ancestors and Me, The

Original Title: Le Big Bang, Mes Ancêtres et Moi

Duration: 50’

Producer: Doc en Stock Daniel Leconte / Arte

Director: Franck Guérin / Emmanuel Leconte

Company: Doc en Stock

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy

Year: 2009

Country: France

Why does the universe even bother existing? Why is earth so unique? Why are we here?

The scientific explanation of our surroundings and of our origins is probably one of the main achievements of our times. We can trace back our history up until the very first nanoseconds of the Big Bang! It is the same adventure that has started with the expansion of the universe and gave us birth: we descend from apes and bacteria but also from comets and galaxies: we literary originate from stardust! The movie is articulated around the three enigmas of origins: the vertiginous emergence of our universe, the very unlikely apparition of life and the extremely lucky origins of humankind. Each moment of this fascinating story will be told by a famous scientific specialized on the origins of the world that is around us: Pascal Picq, Hubert Reeves, Sylvie Vauclair and Jim Peebles will be among them… We will investigate in scientific sites related to each these enigmas: we will go up to the Peak du Midi – the highest observatory in Europe; we will search the archeological site of Atapuerca – home of our older European ancestor; and we will go 100m meters underground to understand what the Large Hadron Collider is about to reveal…We will give faithful account of the most recent discoveries with regards to the origins of the world but also talk about the countless mysteries still unresolved. We will gather interviews from a wide variety or experts and show the scientific field is constantly on the move: it apparently follows the principles of evolution as well!

15. Big Energy Gamble, The

Original Title: The Big Energy Gamble

Duration: 56’

Producer: Paula Apsell / Larry Klein / Matthew Barrett / Cass Sapir

Director:

Company: WGBH / NOVA

Scientific Field: Environment / Technologies / Climate Change and Effects

Year: 2009

Country: USA

NOVA explores the pros and cons of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dramatic and controversial program to slash carbon dioxide emissions and promote energy efficiency, which could be adopted nationwide during the Obama administration.

To examine the California initiative, NOVA conducts in-depth interviews with Governor Schwarzenegger, skeptics and supporters of the plan, and ordinary citizens and businesspeople whose lives will change significantly when the new regulations take effect. California's 2006 law mandates a statewide rollback of carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and a further 80 percent reduction by 2050—goals also shared by President Obama. If implemented in full, California's effort will be the most ambitious to address global warming by any political entity in the world.

The sense of urgency is acute, because California may be particularly susceptible to the effects of climate change. Drought possibly linked to global warming has already resulted in devastating wildfires and chronic water shortages in large sections of the state. California's major population centers are also threatened by rising sea level—another problem linked to increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

16. Bohemia – A Year in the Wetlands

Original Title: Bohemia – A Year in the Wetlands

Duration: 50’

Producer: Rita Schlamberger

Director: Jiri Petr / Michael Schlamberger

Company: ScienceVision Filmproduktions GmbH

Scientific Field: Wildlife / Nature

Year: 2009

Country: Austria

In the heart of central Europe there is an extraordinary system of ponds and linking irrigation channels that were built in the Middle Ages. These artificial wetlands in Bohemia, a region in the Czech Republic, have become an essential refuge for wildlife. Over 150 species of birds breed in this area; there are mammals, like the moose, that are almost no longer found in Europe. These artificial wetlands were constructed in the Middle Ages and today they have become a part of the culture and tradition of the people who still farm them for the carp that were introduced in the 13th Century. BOHEMIA – A YEAR IN THE WETLANDS explores these manmade wetlands, and shows that wildlife can still exist side by side with sustainable farming.

17. Bringing Life to Space

Original Title: Turen gǻr til mars

Duration: 3x28’30’’

Producer: Jakob Gottschau

Director: Jakob Gottschau / Ojvind Hesselager

Company: Express tv - production

Scientific Field: Environment / Space / Astronomy

Year: 2010

Country: Denmark

One Year Locked in a Container - Bringing Life to Space 1:3 For several decades man have prepared for long voyages into space and to settle other planets. To secure survival on a long journey we need to “Bring Life to Space”, and scientists have been trying to copy Earth’s delicate ecological balances in small, sealed cycles, to prepare the production of sufficient and vital supplies of water, oxygen and food on a journey into space. This historical documentary takes us back to the 1960s and reveals unique footage from Russian experiments, where people were confined for one year in a sealed spaceship mock up. Two Years Sealed under Glass - Bringing Life to Space 2:3 For several decades man have prepared for long voyages into space and to settle other planets. To secure survival on a long journey we need to “Bring Life to Space”, and scientists have been trying to copy Earth’s delicate ecological balances in small, sealed cycles, to prepare the production of sufficient and vital supplies of water, oxygen and food on a journey into space. This historical documentary reveals the extraordinary American experiment, “Biosphere 2” back in 1991, where a group eight persons were isolated for two years in a huge glass construction which contained a small scale model of planet Earth. 500 Days in a Metal Tube - Bringing Life to Space 3:3 For several decades man have prepared for long voyages into space and to settle other planets. To secure survival on a long journey we need to “Bring Life to Space”, and scientists have been trying to copy Earth’s delicate ecological balances in small, sealed cycles, to prepare the production of sufficient and vital supplies of water, oxygen and food on a journey into space. This documentary covers the recent Russian/European experiment “Mars 500”, where a mixed crew of six people is locked up in a metal tube to simulate a trip to Mars.

18. Carbon: Public Enemy №1

Original Title: Ennemi Public № 1: Carbone

Duration: 52’

Producer: Nicolas Koutsikas

Director: Nicolas Koutsikas / Stéphan Poulle

Company: Georama TV Productions / 2d3D Animations / Bluewing TV Productions

Scientific Field: Environment

Year: 2009

Country: France / Greece

Global warming has now become a frightening reality. The scientific community as a whole is rallying to try and avoid its most dramatic consequences.CO2 is Public Enemy N°1; should global warming continue at the prevailing rate, carbon dioxide could make our planet more and more inhospitable …

Will mankind be able to limit its emissions of greenhouse effect gases, and at what cost? Can the international community avoid the worst? And what if global warming represented an opportunity for the future of our planet?

19. Catching Cancer

Original Title: Catching Cancer

Duration: 55’

Producer: Tony Wright

Director: Sonya Pemberton

Company: December Films & Pemberton Films

Scientific Field: Medical

Year: 2009

Country: Australia

One in three of us will get cancer at some stage in our lives. From the moment of diagnosis the common cry is “why me?” Now, across the planet, a select group of scientists is hunting cancer-causing infections. Startling new evidence is revealing that viruses and bacteria are triggering some of the biggest killers of our time. And, believe it or not, this is good news.

20. Chameleon Beach

Original Title: Kamæleonernes Strand

Duration: 52’

Producer: Adam Schmedes

Director: Adam Schmedes

Company: Loke Film

Scientific Field: Wildlife

Year: 2008

Country: Denmark

The film follows two chameleons out of a population of only 300, living by a lagoon in Greece. From they appear in the sand as tiny vulnerable animals to their death, we remain close to our main characters. The aim is to experience what a chameleon life is and to explore never before filmed behaviour such as a swimming chameleon and the male’s humiliation of another male. But living on this beautiful Greek beach, which is also a growing tourist destination, is not without risks. Natural enemies are snakes, birds, scorpions and the climate; low winter temperatures and devastating sandstorms. But the real danger is the confrontation with man, their waste attracting rats, the 4x4 wheelers riding the dunes and even regular thieves steeling chameleons.

21. Childhood under Surveillance

Original Title: L’ Enfance sous Contrôle

Duration: 52’

Producer: Luc Martin–Gousset / Ina Fichman

Director: Marie–Pierre Jaury

Company: Point du Jour / Arte France / Intuitive Pictures / CNRS

Scientific Field: Medical

Year: 2009

Country: France / Canada

In today’s post-modern society, behavioural disorder in children and teenagers has become a matter of serious concern. Encouraged by recent research, the issue has even entered the political arena since some scientific studies claim that particular behaviour patterns point to possible future delinquency.

In Europe, the United States and in Canada, scientists’ research is orientated towards possible medical causes (in the psychiatric, neurological or genetic areas) for violent behaviour in youngsters and recommend screenings at an ever earlier stage.

Does this mean that delinquency is an illness? Will science and medicine be able to take on the issues that up to now had been the concern of the social and educational sector? As we meet those who are working in the field and speak to those who are involved with the issue (in France, Canada, the USA, Belgium, the UK and Germany), we understand how behavioural science looks at young children today – and how this might influence our society in the future.

22. Conform Project, The

Original Title: The Conform Project

Duration: 32’

Producer: Optic Verve

Director: Johnny Settle / Matt Howarth

Company: Optic Verve

Scientific Field: Technologies / Exact Sciences / Medical

Year: 2008

Country: United Kingdom

Particle Accelerators in science, technology and medicine

A short documentary film about the accelerator research carried out by the British Accelerator Science and Radiation Oncology Consortium (BASROC) as part of its RCUK-funded CONFORM project. Presented by Lord Robert Winston, the film aims to raise public awareness of the role of particle accelerators in science, technology and medicine, and promote recent new and exciting developments in accelerator design, particularly through the construction of the world''s first ns-FFAG, EMMA, at Daresbury Laboratory . Starting with a brief history of accelerator science the film goes on to explore this innovative accelerator technology, and its applications in proton/hadron therapy for the treatment of cancers and in energy production.

23. Conversing for Science

Original Title: Συνομιλίες για την Επιστήμη

Duration: 50’37’’

Producer: Katerina Evangelakou

Director: Katerine Evangelakou

Company: Katerina Evangelakou

Scientific Field: Physics / Cosmology

Year: 2009

Country: Greece

This is a stand-alone documentary notwithstanding that it is intended to become a part of a series titled “Conversing for Science”. A series which shall cover contemporary science in thematic units: from science to computers, and, form biology to medicine.

In the documentary “From the infinite small to the infinite large”, Giorgos Grammatikakis, a Professor of Physics at the University of Crete, converses with globally renowned Greek colleagues on the impressive avant-garde discoveries, concerning the structure of the matter, astrophysics and cosmology. Their dialogue begins on the mere particles of matter and the forces which impinge betwixt them and reached up to the structure of the Universe and the Big Bang. The finding that these two extremities are connected is amazing: the comprehension of the infinite large and vice versa.

Furthermore, a particular emphasis is placed on the grand experiment taking place this moment at CERN and which is expected to bring forth answers to crucial questions: Issues concerning the existence of the “God particle”, which should determinately confirm the contemporary theory, or the ultra structure of dark matter, that predominates in the Universe.

24. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Life and Death

Original Title: Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Life and Death

Duration: 59’04’’

Producer: Paul Olding

Director: Paul Olding

Company: BBC

Scientific Field: Environment / Wildlife / Nature / Climate Change and Effects

Year: 2009

Country: United Kingdom

Andrew Marr discovers how Darwin’s ideas are helping us to save ourselves and all life on earth from extinction. Marr argues that Charles Darwin is the father of ecology. The modern environmental movement was built upon his insight that all life on earth is linked by a delicate web of connections. He also discovers that Darwin’s Dangerous Idea is inspiring scientists to create a ‘flotilla of Darwinian Noah’s Arks’ to help save life on earth from disaster.

25. Darwin’s Journey

Original Title: La Travesía de Darwin

Duration: 52’

Producer: Pablo Rosenblatt G.

Director: Pablo Lavín Parot

Company: Imago Producciones

Scientific Field: Culture / Anthropology

Year: 2009

Country: Chile

La Travesía de Darwin is a historical series that recreates the journey of the British author of “On the Origin of Species”, Charles Darwin, through Chile between December 1832 and July 1835. During this time, the naturalist travelled across Chilean waters and territory while he sailed around the world, encountering situations and episodes that were crucial for the development of his ideas and research. Eminent experts in Evolution Theory, such as ethologist Richard Dawkins, psychologist Steven Pinker or the writer Ian McEwan, in addition to noted Chilean scholars such as biologist Humberto Maturana, geologist Francisco Hervé and the engineer Alvaro Fischer analyze his ideas and shed light on some topics that the inhabitants of the 21st Century are currently in conflict with: climate change, adaptation to the environment, sex, emotions and love. In three chapters, we follow the route that will take us from Tierra del Fuego, the Magellanic channels, in the south of Chile, to disembark in the famed port of Valparaíso, in a journey that will unveil the past, the present and future of our species.

26. Darwin’s Lost Paradise

Original Title: Le Grand Voyage de Charles Darwin

Duration: 91’19’’

Producer: Werner Vennewald / Penny Chapman / Emmanuel Laurent

Director: Hannes Schuler / Katharina Von Flotow

Company: Monaco Film / Chapman Pictures / Films à Trois

Scientific Field:

Year: 2009

Country: France / Germany / Australia

A one-hour documentary & 90-minute. TVHD/HDTV. Written by Jan Lorenzen & Katharina von Flotow. Directed by Hannes Schuler, Katharina von Flotow, Produced by Emmanuel Laurent, Werner Vennevald & Penny Chapman. A coproduction Monaco Film / Penny Chapman Productions / Films à Trois. For ARTE and SBS.

Charles Darwin is one of mankinds’ greatest thinkers. His scientific observations which culminated in the publication of the Theory of Evolution in 1859, shook man’s age old belief in being the „chosen ones“ – the fruit of „divine creation“ and proved that mankind had developed through a long and painstaking evolutionary process. Man was no longer the exceptional creation of God, but the result of a process of adaptation which had been taking place over millions of years.

27. Death of the Megabeasts

Original Title: Death of the Megabeasts

Duration: 52’

Producer: Ed Punchard / Julia Redwood

Director: Franco Di Chiera

Company: Prospero Productions

Scientific Field: Wildlife / Culture / Anthropology

Year: 2010

Country: Australia

A team of scientific detectives from around the world attempt to crack one of science’s most enduring mysteries - what killed the megafauna? Long after the extinction of the dinosaurs, extraordinary species of giant beasts roamed the earth, ruling the animal kingdom for hundreds of thousands of years. But suddenly, they vanished. Something happened which wiped them off the face of the planet forever. Recent discoveries could now help solve that mystery and offer insight into environmental problems today which threaten the world - and mankind.

28. Diverseeds (Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture)

Original Title: Diverseeds (Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture)

Duration: 50’27’’

Producer: Markus Schmidt

Director: Markus Schmidt / Camillo Meinhart

Company: IDC

Scientific Field: Environment / Genetics / Agriculture

Year: 2009

Country: Austria

In agriculture, the widespread adoption of a few improved varieties has narrowed the genetic base of important food crops and led to the disappearance of hundreds of landraces. Conserving and using plant genetic diversity is vital in meeting the world's future development needs in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. This documentary shows why biodiversity is important for agriculture and how it is conserved and used in many different locations in Europe and Asia. The film describes - with splendid pictures from Europe and Asia - the relevance of traditional landraces, crop wild relatives, genebanks (including the Global Seed Vault), and civil society movements in the global challenge to preserve and use plant genetic resources for food and agriculture.

29. Djemo, Goat and Brucellosis

Original Title: Džemo, Koza i Bruceloza

Duration: 19’04’’

Producer: Nisvet Hrustić

Director: Nisvet Hrustić

Company: Independent production

Scientific Field: Environment / Health / Ecology / Nature

Year: 2009

Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina

Brucellosis is a very dangerous disease that affects sheep, goats and other animals. It, also, gets transferred to people and it is very hard to treat. About 500.000 people get affected every year, worldwide. Until year 2004. in Bosnia and Herzegovina, brucellosis was not significantly present. But, with uncontrolled import of live stock, that started this year,

brucellosis became highly increased dicease in this country. In 2007, 500 people got affected. In first half of 2008. 12.500 sheep and goats were euthanised, when brucellosis got epidemic proportions.

30. Do You know what Time It is?

Original Title: Do You know what Time It is?

Duration: 59’04’’

Producer: Paul Olding

Director: Paul Olding

Company: BBC

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy / Philosophy / Exact Sciences

Year: 2008

Country: United Kingdom

Particle physicist and ex D: Ream keyboard player Prof Brian Cox wants to know What Time Is It? It’s a simple question and it sounds like it has a simple answer. But do we really know what it is that we’re asking? Brian visits the ancient Mayan pyramids in Mexico where the Maya built temples to time. He finds out that a day is never 24 hours and meets Earth’s very own ‘Director of Time’. He journeys to the beginning of time, and goes beyond within the realms of string theory, and explores the very limit of time. He discovers that we not only travel through time at the speed of light, but the experience we feel as the passing of time could be an illusion.

31. Evolution of the Moon, The

Original Title: The Evolution of the Moon

Duration: 49’

Producer: Atsushi Nishida

Director: Tomoyuki Katsumata / Yuichi Kunihara

Company: NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corp.) co-produced with France Television Distribution / Discovery Channel Canada in association with National Geographic Channel U.S.

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy

Year: 2008

Country: Japan

Japan's "Kaguya (Selene)" lunar explorer has been gathering information on the moon since 2007. Mounted with cameras that can take high-resolution still and moving pictures, Kaguya has been sending back a steady stream of beautiful and scientifically valuable images. Kaguya succeeded in capturing for the first time in high-definition the stunning images of the earth rising above the moon's horizon. Scientists have been able to use Kaguya's images to analyze unknown craters and understand the moon's underground structure. Join us on a 21st century voyage to the moon.

32. Eyes on the Skies

Original Title: Eyes on the Skies

Duration: 60’

Producer: ESA / Hubble

Director: Lars Lindberg Christensen

Company: International Astronomical Union / International Year of Atronomy 2009

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy / Technologies

Year: 2009

Country: Germany

Eyes on the Skies is the International Astronomical Union's book and movie celebrating the 400th anniversary of the telescope, which has been by far the most revolutionary development in the history of astronomy. For thousands of years, astronomers had to rely on their eyes in unraveling the mysteries of the Universe. The telescope revealed an embarrassment of astronomical riches, and led to a dramatic increase of knowledge about the wider world we live in. Featuring sterling production quality and a screenplay that makes astronomy and astrophysics exciting and accessible, the Eyes on the Skies DVD movie explores the many facets of the telescope — the historical development, the scientific importance, the technological breakthroughs, and also the people behind this ground-breaking invention, their triumphs and failures… The Eyes on the Skies movie is presented by Dr. J aka Dr. Joe Liske from ESO, host of the Hubblecast video podcast. The DVD runs for 60 minutes and contains subtitles in several languages.

33. Feeding our Future – Nutrition on Earth & in Space

Original Title: Feeding our Future – Nutrtion on Earth & in Space

Duration: 35’

Producer: Anna Melin

Director: Jim Franks

Company: Brook Lapping for the European Space Agency

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy / Nutrition

Year: 2009

Country: Europe

Manned space missions to the Moon and beyond are currently being researched. Over the next decades the first man on Mars could be science fact - not science fiction.

This extraordinary step for mankind will need some amazing advances in technology and engineering. And it is not just interplanetary spacecraft and habitats that we need to develop and build to explore these hostile environments.

It is also a question of ‘what will be for dinner on Mars’?

On the International Space Station the European Space Agency is investigating this question. This programme examines food and nutrition as a vital ingredient for life on Earth and in space, and discovers why we need food in the first place and what it represents in our cultural and daily life.

The programme also focuses on research for preserving and growing food for long term human spaceflights; research that is creating valuable technologies for future food supplies on Earth where climate change and population growth are big challenges all over the world.

Life scientist Nicole Sentse, whose work for ESA on the human spaceflight programme gives her unique insights into food and nutrition on Earth and in space presents the programme.

34. Fire Factor, The

Original Title: Το Τρίγωνο της Φωτιάς

Duration: 45’

Producer: Rea Apostolides / Yuri Averof

Director: Nikos Dayandas

Company: Anemon Productions

Scientific Field: Environment / Nature

Year: 2009

Country: Greece

«The Fire Factor» is a documentary that investigates the causes of the fatal 2007 fires in the Peloponnese. Scientists, specialists but, most importantly, the people who were in the front-line of the fight to put out the fires, talk about the catastrophe and its causes.

The film draws two basic conclusions: firstly, that the Greek forest protection service needs urgent reorganisation and that, since 2007, almost nothing has changed. The recent fires in northeast Attica are a dramatic illustration that the huge problems and shortfalls of the forest protection system remain.

35. Flower for Diabetics, Α

Original Title: Une Fleur pour les Diabétiques

Duration: 11’

Producer: Marie-Claude Guay and Charles Marcoux

Director: Hélène Leroux

Company: Radio-Canada

Scientific Field: Medical

Year: 2009

Country: Canada

You don’t see it, but it’s there: diabetes rates are exploding everywhere. According to the World Health Organization, there are over 180 million diabetics in the world. That figure could double by 2030.In large part, the diabetes scourge is caused by obesity and sedentary lifestyles.To survive, diabetics need insulin. But demand has risen so quickly that a shortage looms. A Calgary scientist thinks he has the solution. Maurice Moloney has developed a plant-made insulin that could revolutionize diabetes treatment and the use of plants in pharmacology. He succeeded in modifying sawfflower plants so they can now produce the precious insulin. This is what we call molecular farming. The first trial on human beings was successful. But before marketing his plant-made insulin, Maurice Moloney and his team need to produce it in bigger quantity, in outside fields. To certain environmental groups such as Greenpeace, the risks of open-air molecular farming outweigh the benefits.

36. Fool or Genious

Original Title: Gal eller Genial

Duration: 18’

Producer: Jacob Kofler

Director: Jacob Kofler

Company: Highwire / Danish Broadcast Corporation

Scientific Field: Invention / Innovation

Year: 2010

Country: Denmark

Is it possible to professionally review an invention?

20 inventers struggle to get recognition and respect from the unimpressed judge, Vincent F. Hendricks, who repay with a blunt - but constructive - review of their inventions.

Mortal diseases, CO2 emission, mountains of waste and malnutrition. There are plenty of problems in the world, but who can really solve them? Vincent F. Hendricks, an internationally famous Danish professor in philosophy and logic, is aware of that. The expectations are high and their inventions must more or less improve life for mankind. But it is not a downside, if the inventor knows how to capitalize on the invention - also internationally! In “Fool or Genius”, Hendricks studies 20 inventions under development, from all over Denmark. The inventors and their inventions are presented in the environment where they are created - from the tiny shack in the outskirts of Denmark to large development departments in greater Danish companies. Next, the inventor is invited into Hendricks futuristic and slightly intimidating office - where he concisely defends his invention, with all means!

And then Judgment Day.. Vincent Hendricks is not easily impressed, when he hands out “light-bulbs” for originality, risk taking and potential of the invention and the will, experience and courage of the inventor. See who gets out of Vincent’s office with straight A’s, when we begin the search of Denmark’s best inventions, on April 6th.

37. Future at what Price?, The

Original Title: Un Avenir à quell Prix

Duration: 52’

Producer: JM Rodrigo

Director: David Martin

Company: Mécanos Productions

Scientific Field: Environment / Climate Change and Effects

Year: 2010

Country: France

If we want to avoid the climate catastrophe that awaits us, then we need to urgently cut planetary CO2 emissions by half. This is the absolute minimum. Unfortunately the experts are predicting that global energy consumption will double between now and the year 2050. And so we need to square the circle… The threat of climate conflicts are becoming more and more apparent: lack of water, deforestation, massive migrations of climate refugees, ongoing battles for control over raw resources and agricultural land… Reasonable energy consumption is the only concrete solution to avoiding these too easy to imagine catastrophic scenarios that are increasingly tempering our spirits. This is the only solution that is realistic, reasonable, and sustainable. All other options are nothing but illusions for those blinded by reality. This revolution in social and economic behaviour, including individuals, will affect all areas including consumption, agriculture, transportation, homes, urbanism, and leisure. Can the carbon trading market put into place by the Kyoto treaty give rise to this environmental revolution or is it an ideal opportunity for ‘greening’ reckless speculators. Can fiscal constraints such as the carbon tax put the brakes on the aberrant growth in global trade provoked by trend for labour outsourcing and the nearly free cost of transporting goods? These are just some of the complex, but urgent and important, questions that this film addresses. The time for hesitating is over. The price that we give to carbon is that of our future… Our children’s future.

38. Future Makers, The

Original Title: The Future Makers

Duration: 46’

Producer: Lisa Duff / Maryella Hatfield / Krissoula Syrmis

Director: Maryella Hatfield

Company: The Future Makers Pty Ltd

Scientific Field: Environment / Technologies / Climate Change and Effetcts

Year: 2008

Country: Australia

A number of Australians are world leaders in renewable energy and sustainable solutions.

They are serious about creating clean energy options to make a big difference. Some draw energy and inspiration from nature in their clean technology designs. Dr Tim Finnigan uses bio-mimicry, or “innovation inspired by nature”, to design his oceanpower systems. Dr Robert Dane modeled his Solar Sailor boat design on the insect’s wing. Dr David Mills’ solar thermal technology is pitched as the clean alternative to coal and nuclear power. It attracted international attention and was rolled out in the US on a large scale. Deep hot rock, or geothermal technology, has been developed by Dr Prame Chopra and Dr Doone Wyborn, in the remote deserts of South Australia. They believe this energy source could provide Australia’s energy needs for the next 500 years. Dr Zhengrong Shi’s solar cell research was built on work pioneered at the University of NSW. He is now one of the world’s largest solar panel supplier.

The Future Makers explores the visions of these leaders and follows them as their projects unfold.

39. Heartbreak Science

Original Title: Heartbreak Science

Duration: 52’

Producer: Ed Punchard / Julia Redwood

Director: Russell Vines

Company: Prospero Productions

Scientific Field: Medical

Year: 2010

Country: Australia

Heartbreak Science is a fascinating popular science documentary that investigates some of the world’s most intriguing heart mysteries and follows the scientists on the frontline of heart science. With heart disease now the number one killer in the world today we’re about to look at the body’s most important muscle in a revolutionary new way. From incredible new connections between the heart and the mind to an intriguing system of neurons dubbed “the little heart in the brain”, this is the secret life of the human heart.

40. Here comes the Sun

Original Title: Here comes the Sun

Duration: 55’

Producer: Judith van den Berg

Director: Rob van Hattum

Company: VPRO Public Broadcasting Organisation

Scientific Field: Environment / Technologies / Energy

Year: 2008

Country: The Netherlands

This documentary will change your ideas about the future of energy. A surface the size of France covered with solar plants in the desert is enough to fuel the entire planet. So with all the global warming, the oil dependency, the energy security problems, why don’t we shift into a Helio Society. In fact we are doing so. The German politician Hermann Scheer has changed the German economy into a Solar Economy. Prince Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan pleas for Large Solar plants in the desert. The electronics industry is taking over the Solar Business by a booming production of cheap thin film Solar Cells. We are shifting to a solar economy. The only thing is you don’t know it…..until now.

41. Hidden Life of our Genes, The

Original Title: La Vie Cachée de nos Gènes

Duration: 52’

Producer: Pierre–François Decouflé

Director: Hervé Nisic

Company: Heliox Films

Scientific Field: Genetics

Year: 2009

Country: France

The film is made of encounters with a bunch of european scientists. The scientists positions and points of view are illustrated by real or metaphoric images as with filmed scientific experiences. The film has been shot in autumn 2008 by Hervé Nisic and his crew led by the famous director of photography Jean Jacques Bouhon (« les Choristes », « Trois hommes et un couffin », « La vérité si je mens », …). They have interviewed the scientists, filmed the experiments, twins, animals, plants and

snap shots from Amsterdam, Barcelona, Cambridge, Göttingen, Hanover, London, Paris, Vienna and Zürich.

42. Holy Dung

Original Title: Holy Dung

Duration: 52’

Producer: Thierry Berrod

Director: Quincy Russell

Company: Mona Lisa Production

Scientific Field: Environment / Wildlife / Culture / Anthropology / Nature / Medical / Exact Sciences

Year: 2008

Country: France

A single cow can eliminate 65,000 liters of dung every year. It shows just how important pooping is in the life of a cow. Dung, poop, manure, droppings, crap, turd… Despite this colorful vocabulary, animal faeces is a rather icky, not a popular topic of conversation… So whenever possible, we will use a perfumed code name : the Rose. In the animal world, the rose is not just a floral tribute to yesterday's lunch. It can attract food, and even tells you who’s in town… But humans too have a good nose for using this precious substance. And humans have discovered a multitude of functions for our floral friends. Fertilizers, building material, soap, beauty products, coffee…, there seems to be no limit to their use. So join us on this trip to discover their bouquet…

43. Honeybee Blues

Original Title: Honeybee Blues

Duration: 52’

Producer: Susan Mackinnon / Anna Cater

Director: Stefan Moore

Company: Mitra Films

Scientific Field: Environment

Year: 2009

Country: Australia

From the native bush and orchards of Australia to the industrial farmlands of the United States and the highlands of Papua New Guinea, Honeybee Blues is a scientific detective story that tells a 21st century cautionary tale.

The European honeybee, or Apis mellifera, is used for commercial honey production and by a global pollination industry. Without it we would lose a third of the world’s food supply.

But honeybees are under threat from all directions. Industrial agriculture and habitat destruction have taken a toll but the biggest threat is a deadly parasitic mite which Anderson discovered and called Varroa destructor. It has decimated bee populations everywhere except Australia which is now the only country that still has European honeybees living in the wild. While in Papua New Guinea, Anderson discovers another lethal mite, Varroa jacobsoni, that adds to the threat to the world’s honeybees.

Denis Anderson believes the solution to eradicating the Varroa mite lies in the genes of the honeybee. He is trying to switch off the honeybee gene that tells the Varroa mite to reproduce.

44. Horizon: To Infinity and Beyond

Original Title: Horizon: To Infinity and Beyond

Duration: 59’12’’

Producer: Stephen Cooter

Director: Stephen Cooter

Company: BBC

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy / Mathematics

Year: 2010

Country: United Kingdom

By our third year, most of us will have learned to count. Once we know how, it seems as if there would be nothing to stop us counting forever. But, while infinity might seem like an perfectly innocent idea, keep counting and you enter a paradoxical world where nothing is as it seems.

Mathematicians have discovered there are infinitely many infinities, each one infinitely bigger than the last. And if the universe goes on forever, the consequences are even more bizarre. In an infinite universe, there are infinitely many copies of the Earth and infinitely many copies of you. Older than time, bigger than the universe and stranger than fiction. This is the story of infinity.

45. Houston We have Problem

Original Title: Huston We have Problem

Duration: 84’

Producer: Nicole Torre

Director: Nicole Torre

Company: New Angle Media, Ilc

Scientific Field: Environment / Nanotechnology / Technologies / Energy & Oil

Year: 2009

Country: USA

Step inside the energy capital of the world to hear the truth about oil, straight from the hearts of the Texas oilmen themselves. See decades of American presidents who have warned against the dependence on foreign oil, and how the U.S. Energy Policy has always been a strategy of Defense, not Offense.

Today, in the midst of Global Warming and Peak Oil, the world’s energy demand is skyrocketing. Aggressive strategies for securing Crude now go to the highest bidder or the biggest bully. Hear the confessions of oilmen, who work in the trenches every day, scrambling to feed America’s ferocious appetite. Even they know that being addicted to cheap oil is the drug that will be the nation’s downfall.

The world is moving fast, and the country that is the most energy-independent will lead the 21st century. As America’s new administration faces the standard government gridlock on these issues, both Wall Street and Main Street are rallying to build a clean-energy economy. See new forms of Wildcatting in renewable energy and Algae fuel production. HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM makes it crystal clear that we must embrace all forms of alternative energy in order to save the planet and ourselves.

46. How Potatoes can save the World?

Original Title: How Potatoes can save the World?

Duration: 49’

Producer: Takaaki Takai

Director: Toshihiko Suzuki / Yasukazu Sato

Company: NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corp.)

Scientific Field: Environment / Climate Change and Effects

Year: 2009

Country: Japan

The humble potato may be the solution to the world food crisis. Indeed, its potential doesn't stop at being a major accompaniment on the plate!

From the Papua New Guinea potato whose protein content is 2.5-fold that of regular potatoes, to the Japanese sweet potato seeking to suppress its distinctive sweetness and go global, this program redefines the role of the potato as the next generation energy source.

47. Hubble’s Amazing Rescue

Original Title: Hubble’s Amazing Rescue

Duration: 56’

Producer: Paula Apsell / Kirk Wolfinger / Donna Huttemann / Rushmore DeNooyer

Director:

Company: WGBH / NOVA

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy / Technologies

Year: 2009

Country: USA

The best-known scientific instrument in history was dying. After nearly 20 years in space and hundreds of thousands of spectacular images, the Hubble Space Telescope’s gyroscopes and sensors were failing, its batteries running down, and some of its instruments were already dead. The only hope to save Hubble was a mission so dangerous that in 2004 NASA cancelled it because it was considered too risky. Scientists and the general public alike stubbornly refused to abandon the telescope, and a new NASA administrator revived the mission. Hubble’s Amazing Rescue takes viewers behind the scenes on a riveting journey with the team of astronauts and engineers charged with saving the famous “orbiting observatory” against all odds.

48. Human Spark, The

Original Title: The Human Spark

Duration: 3x55’

Producer: Graham Chedd / Jared Lipworth

Director: Larry Engel

Company: Chedd–Angier–Lewis Productions / THIRTEEN / WNET.ORG

Scientific Field: Culture / Anthropology

Year: 2010

Country: USA

Three and a half billion years of evolution have produced uncountable billions of living species. But only one – humans - can think in symbols; recombine those symbols into infinite meanings; invent a technology to disseminate the message; worry how others might react to it; ponder on the past; speculate about the future; and imagine the unknown. The Human Spark follows Alan Alda as he explores our uniquely human brains and tackles the differences between us, our extinct Neanderthal cousins, and modern chimps.

Episode 1: Becoming Us

Series host and narrator, Alan Alda, confronts the puzzle of why our ancestors in Africa got the Spark and evolved into us, while the first humans to leave Africa for Europe--the Neanderthals--never did. Why did we flourish, while they changed very little for thousands of generations before eventually dying out?

Episode 2: So Human, So Chimp

Alan Alda joins researchers studying human children and chimpanzees to discover why we share some skills with our closest living relatives, but have far surpassed then in our most uniquely human capabilities. Though we both descend from a common ancestor and are genetically so similar, why are we world apart in our behaviors and abilities?

Episode 3: Brain Matters

Peer into Alan Alda's head to find out which parts of our brain are responsible for our most human characteristics. Where do tool use and language reside? And how do our brains allow us to understand symbolism, figure out what others are thinking, and even travel in time? Are insight and imagination what really make humans unique?

49. Immunology Knight, The

Original Title: The Immunology Knight

Duration: 04’

Producer: Feedback: Alessandro Codaglio

Director: Luca Sabbioni

Company: The EFIS

Scientific Field: Immunology

Year: 2009

Country: Italy

Danger isn’t always where you expect it…and heroes may not be exactly as you imagine…The Imune system is your best partner!

50. Inside Nature’s Giants: The Whale

Original Title: Inside Nature’s Giants: The Whale

Duration: 48’01’’

Producer: David Dugan / Alex Tate

Director: David Dugan / Julian Thomas

Company: Windfall Films for Channel 4 and National Geographic Channels

Scientific Field: Exact Sciences / Nature / Comparative Anatomy / Evolutionary Biology

Year: 2009

Country: United Kingdom

Inside Nature’s Giants dissects the largest animals on the planet to uncover their evolutionary secrets. Most wildlife documentaries tell you how an animal behaves, but by dissecting the animal and studying its anatomy we can we can see how an animal works. In The Whale – the team dissect a 65’ Fine Whale stranded off the coast of Ireland. Whale anatomist Joy Reidenberg flies in from New York to stop the animal exploding on the beach. Veterinary scientist, Mark Evans, helps investigate why it died and explores its extraordinary anatomy. Using heavy machinery Joy and the team set to work amidst gale force winds, driving rain, blood & guts, evil smells and freezing conditions as the advancing tides threaten to engulf the whale. Beneath the blubber, the whale’s unique anatomy holds clues to its evolution. Through combining gross anatomy and computer graphics we discover an animal whose closest living relative is the hippo. Richard Dawkins explains the evolutionary problems that have to be overcome to transform a land-based mammal into an animal that swims among fish.

51. Jabe Babe – A Heightened Life

Original Title: Jabe Babe – A Heightened Life

Duration: 52’

Producer: Janet Merewether / Deborah Szapiro / Georgia Wallace-Crabbe

Director: Janet Merewether

Company: Go Girl Productions

Scientific Field: Experimental / Genetics / Medical / Biography

Year: 2005

Country: Autralia

JABE BABE - A HEIGHTENED LIFE transports its audience to the world of 31 year old Jabe Babe, a tall girl with a tall story. Jabe measures 6ft 2inches (188cm), works as a dominatrix and lives on the margins, defying society's expectations of the 'normal' 'feminine' body and sexuality. Jabe Babe also has a life threatening genetic condition called Marfan Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder which affects one in three thousand people. The film explores her early experiences of living with her schizophrenic mother, before moving through a series of somtimes families in the foster care system. This hybrid documentary film, merging fiction and non-fiction forms, inhabits the heightened ‘technicolor’ world of the tall woman, the outsider, to provoke questions on society's desire for sexual, visual, and genetic conformity.

52. JADE, Large Alpine Axeheads of the European Neolithic 5th and 4th millennia BC

Original Title: JADE, Grandes Haches Alpines du Néolithique Européen Ve et IVe Millénaires

Duration: 67’

Producer: CRAVA / CERIMES

Director: Anne-Marie Petrequin

Company: CRAVA

Scientific Field: Archaeology

Year: 2009

Country: France

During the whole of the 5th millennium and part of the 4th, Neolithic Europe was involved in the circulation of large polished axeheads made of jades (jadeitite, omphacitite and eclogite). This exchange network extended over 3500 kilometres from west to east and over more than 2000 kilometres from north to south.

In 2003, CNRS researchers identified the origin of these axeheads made of these precious rocks in the Italian Alps, in particular in the Mont Viso massif, between 1700 and 2400 metres above sea level.

This documentary film retraces the history of the discovery of the alpine quarries and the conditions under which roughouts for these extraordinary axeheads were produced, during seasonal expeditions. The profound reasons for this specific interest in Alpine jades during the Neolithic are to be found in the social inequalities and religious rituals of the time, which controlled the use of sacred objects that were exclusive to the elites. This is certainly the reason why these extraordinary objects reached Brittany in the west, Ireland, Scotland and Denmark in the north, Bulgaria and northern Greece to the east and Sicily in the south, in a system of religious beliefs that was common across the whole of Europe.

53. Killer Algae

Original Title: Killeralgen

Duration: 50’34’’

Producer: Elmar Bartlmae

Director: Corinna Engelhardt

Company: Leonardo Engelhardt GmbH

Scientific Field: Environment

Year: 2009

Country: Germany

Worldwide there are more than 200 highly toxic algae species. They proliferate in sudden bursts resulting in massive algae blooms. Mussels ingest the algae toxins and thereby become a deadly threat. Mussel farmers around the world suffer from the toxic algal blooms – and they are increasing in frequency and severity.

Florida is regularly hit by the Red Tide, an algal bloom that paints the sea blood-red. Thousands of fish, a lot of manatees, marine mammals and dolphins die almost every year due to the red tide.

Ireland regularly experiences harmful algal blooms and has realized the importance of monitoring, as it is essential to protect customers and industry.

On the Philippines the invisible algal blooms poison oceans and destroy the livelihoods of people living near the coast. For the mussel farmers it is an economic disaster. Bays have been poisoned for years. Despite this, mussels are still being consumed in the slums. The toxins remain in the mussels, even after extensive cooking or the addition of spices or alcohol. Many people already have been killed by intoxication.

54. Lacquer in Asia: From Techniques to Art

Original Title: La Laque en Asia

Duration: 52’

Producer: CNRS Images / Réseau Asie-IMASIE (CNRES FMSH) / Jeanne Goffinet

Director: Seto Momoko

Company: CNRS Images / Reseau Asie

Scientific Field: Culture / Anthropology / Environment / Technologies / Exact Sciences/ Nature / Crafts

Year: 2010

Country: France

Lacquer is a major Asian cultural symbol. Although one of the oldest techniques in the world, it remains relatively unknown in the Western world. Its exact origin is still much debated but 4,000 years ago the lacquer technique was greatly valued in China. By spreading from China to neighbouring countries, this transfer led to the circulation of different customs within Asia. It was first used to glue and protect objects and also contributed to improving living conditions at the time. It represented a true revolution, gradually becoming an artistic style in its own right, and was uniquely adapted in the Asian countries in which it developed. This film takes us to three of these countries: Japan, where lacquer objects are works of art and the craftsmen are constantly seeking perfection; Vietnam, where lacquer paintings have become both a creative artistic tool and a national symbol; and China, where the technique has been modernised.

The main objective of this documentary is to produce better knowledge of Asian cultures and promote the work of craftsmen, artists and researchers on the subject.

55. Laughology

Original Title: Laughology

Duration: 64’

Producer: Erin Faith Youg / Jennifer St. John / Albert Nerenberg

Director: Albert Nerenberg

Company: Caché Film and Television

Scientific Field: Culture / Anthropology / Medical

Year: 2009

Country: Canada

Laughter. Plato hated it, the Bible discouraged it, scientists avoided it, psychologists once thought if it didn't kill you, it would drive you insane. With his trademark blend of humour and serious investigation, Albert Nerenberg drops in on cutting edge neuroscientists and cardiologists, a joyous yoga teacher, and Christian holy laughter groups in search of its origin and meaning. He visits the site of a severe laughter epidemic in Africa and reconvenes the folks who created The Nanny's laugh tracks. Ultimately he finds the man with the most contagious laugh in the world. Laughology wittily weaves research, archival stills, television clips, and a hilarious send-up of the use of re-enactments in docs. Nerenberg's quest to rediscover his own laugh has produced a film that will undoubtedly play a major role in a "global laughter trend at a crucial time when the world needs a good laugh."

56. Living Downstream

Original Title: Living Downstream

Duration: 85’

Producer: Chanda Chevannes

Director: Chanda Chevannes

Company: The People’s Picture Company

Scientific Field: Environment / Nature / Medical

Year: 2010

Country: Canada

Based on the acclaimed book by ecologist and cancer survivor Dr. Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., Living Downstream is an eloquent and cinematic feature-length documentary following Sandra during one pivotal year as she travels across North America, working to break the silence about cancer and its environmental links. After a routine cancer screening, Sandra receives some worrying results and is thrust into a period of medical uncertainty. Thus, we begin two journeys with Sandra: her private struggles with cancer and her public fight to bring attention to the urgent human rights issue of cancer prevention. But Sandra is not the only one who is on a journey – the chemicals against which she is fighting are also on the move. We follow these invisible toxins as they migrate to some of the most beautiful places in North America. We see how these chemicals enter our bodies and how, once inside, scientists believe they may be working to cause cancer. Living Downstream is a powerful reminder of the connection between the health of our bodies and the health of our air, land and water.

57. Lost Years – A Sea Turtle Odyssey

Original Title: Lost Years – A Sea Turtle Odyssey

Duration: 51’30’’’

Producer: Larry Zetlin / Christine T. Carroll

Director: Jeremy Hograth

Company: Gulliver Media Australia Pty Ltd

Scientific Field: Environment / Wildlife

Year: 2009

Country: Australia

“THE LOST YEARS” reveals for the first time one of the last great mysteries of the natural world.

It is the story of an extraordinary journey of survival, yet the odds are stacked so heavily against success that perhaps less than one in a thousand of the species ever makes it back to land. For the first time we are able to tell the entire life story of the Loggerhead Sea Turtles that have lived along the tropical coasts of northern Australia for probably hundreds of thousands of years. The film will follow the life story of an individual female Loggerhead, from when her mother lays the clutch of eggs, one of which is our heroine, to when thirty years later she struggles ashore to lay her first clutch of eggs in the beach sands from which she hatched. The film will feature the part of the turtles’ life history, which until now has been unknown – the fifteen “lost years” when she and her kind vanish into the vastness of the southern Pacific Ocean as tiny hatchlings and are not seen again until just a few return to Australian waters to feed and breed. We now know that those lost years take the Loggerheads on what is one of the longest migrations in the world, a round trip of over 30,000 kilometres from the east Australian coasts to the Humboldt current off the coasts of

Peru and Chile, and then returning back again to Australian waters. But that is not the end of the journey. For our heroine then makes another epic voyage to breed for the first time. At the age of thirty, she leaves her feeding area and swims south for some 1500 kilometres navigating with unerring instinct to the sands of her birth. Once there she will stay for three months and lay four clutches of eggs, she then returns north to her feeding grounds again. She will make this journey every four or five years throughout her breeding life. No one is sure exactly what the life span of a Loggerhead turtle is, but some may live for up to eighty years, but at that age they are probably no longer breeding. Loggerhead turtles are now an endangered species, yet they have survived since the age of the dinosaurs. Their lives have been impacted by the dramatic increase in fishing, by flotsam and jetsam thrown overboard, by the advent of tourism on their nesting beaches and now also by global climate shift. But with knowledge comes understanding and action. We now realise that any impact upon sea turtles takes decades to filter through and affect the overall populations. Steps are being taken now to conserve the species, so that in decades to come Loggerhead turtles will still defy the odds that are stacked against them, and continue to vanish into the Pacific to return again to Australian waters.

58. Matter of Colour, A

Original Title: Skin Deep

Duration: 54’34’’

Producer: Marco Visalberghi / Andrew Ogilvie / Maurice Ribière

Director: Franco Di Chiera

Company: DocLab / Electric Pictures / La Compagnie des Taxi-Brousse

Scientific Field: Culture / Anthropology / Genetics

Year: 2010

Country: Italy / Australia / France

Discrimination based on skin colour can be dramatically experienced everyday in many part of the world. But does people really know what skin colour is all about? A long neglected field of science now shows that genetic traits and “race” concept have nothing to do with it, nor does protection from skin cancer. Melanine has instead evolved to help the body to keep the right balance in key vitamins that ensure reproductive success. As skin colour evolved in response to local environments over thousand years, now that people move and settle easily across the globe, changing lifestyle, original skin melanization may not be always the right one in the right place, and may affect their health and their lives. Stories of these people, affected by the consequences of their skin colour, give an original picture of a scientific theory, and definitive proof of what skin colour has evolved for: an obvious adaptive response to the environment, stressing that discrimination is not only socially dangerous and unacceptable, but also scientifically wrong.

59. Michelangelo Revealed

Original Title: Michelangelo – Una Passione Eretica

Duration: 54’

Producer: Marco Visalberghi

Director: Fabrizio Ruggirello

Company: DocLab / La Compagnie des Taxi-Brousse

Scientific Field: Culture / Anthropology

Year: 2009

Country: Italy / France

This one-hour documentary follows restorer-turned-detective Antonio Forcellino as he unravels a dark chapter in Michelangelo’s life: under the Roman Inquisition the great Renaissance master risked trial as a heretic for his involvement with a group of radical reformers. The untold story of Michelangelo that the Church - and the artist himself - have concealed for five centuries.

Art historian and restorer Antonio Forcellino began his research into Michelangelo’s other life ten years ago, when he was asked to restore the tomb of Julius II, the centrepiece of which is the statue of Moses, in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. During his restoration he was bothered by inconsistencies between what he saw with his own eyes and the descriptions of the work in art history books.

Forcellino embarked on a mission to re-examine the biographies, historical records and works of art created by Michelangelo. He uncovered a complex web of people and events and came to a profoundly disturbing conclusion: the official portrayal of Michelangelo as an obedient servant to the popes and passionate propagandist for the Catholic Church is a myth.

60. Moth and the Firefly, The

Original Title: The Moth and the Firefly

Duration: 05’

Producer: Daniel Stedman / Aron Epstein

Director: Daniel Stedman / Aron Epstein

Company: The L Films

Scientific Field: Environment / Experimental / Nature

Year: 2008

Country: USA

A little moth loses its lamplight in a citywide blackout and journeys into the dark city in search of new light. Soon it finds a firefly and together they light up the night – uuntil the blackout end and they lose track of each other in the bright city.

61. Mutations – Selection: The Bacteria resist

Original Title: Mutations – Sélection: les Bactéries font de la Résistance

Duration: 5’04’’

Producer: Yannick Mahé (CNDP)

Director: Yannick Mahé

Company: CNDP

Scientific Field: Genetics / Medical

Year: 2009

Country: France

A young medical assistant is giving a nice presentation about the principles of evolution. The genetic information of each living being is subject to modifications. Mutations can lead to bacterial resistance towards antibiotics. When in contact with the antibiotic, the resistant bacteria will be the only ones to survive, multiply, spread all over and finishing up to be a big problem for medicine.

62. Mystery of the Iron Pillar, The

Original Title: The Mystery of the Iron Pillar

Duration: 33’18’’

Producer: Diego D’Innocenzo

Director: Diego D’Innocenzo

Company: TERRA Srl

Scientific Field: Archaeometallurgy

Year: 2009

Country: Italy

One of the major tourist attractions in India is a 7 ½ metres-tall iron column that stands in the courtyard of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque in New Delhi. This ancient pillar, is considered an OOPART, an “Out Of Place ARTifact”. Although the pillar dates back sixteen centuries, the material it is made of is similar to the Corten steel that was not invented till much later, in 1933. Therefore, the Iron Pillar shouldn’t exist! This amazing historic, archaeological and scientific investigation unravels the mysteries lying behind this metallurgic wonder of ancient India that has drawn the attention of archaeologists, metallurgists, scientists, astrologists and engineers. Why has the Iron Pillar resisted corrosion for 1600 years? The pillar is completely free of rust, though constantly exposed to the elements. Which ancient Indian civilization manufactured it? And how did they develop their great metallurgical skills? What’s the meaning of the inscription in Brahmi characters engraved upon the pillar? Where was it originally erected? And which was its original function? All the enigmas will be solved.

63. Nanoyou

Original Title: Nanoyou

Duration: 17’ 27’’

Producer: Tom Mustill

Director: Tom Mustill

Company: University of Cambridge

Scientific Field: Nanotechnology

Year: 2010

Country: United Kingdom

Where and what is nano? How will it shape our future? Nanoscience is the study of phenomena and manipulation of materials at the nanoscale, where properties differ significantly from those at a larger scale. The strange world of nanoscience - it can take you into atoms and beyond the stars.

This film, produced by Tom Mustill, is non-commercial and funded by the EC and the Nanoscience Centre, University of Cambridge for the Nanoyou project; an education portal which provides online resources for teachers, young people and those interested in an introduction to Nanoscience.

The film which features researchers involved in exploring the world of nano was mainly shot at the Nanoscience Centre, University of Cambridge without whose assistance this film would not have been possible.

64. Nature’s Greatest Defender

Original Title: Nature’s Greatest Defender

Duration: 50’

Producer: Thomas Veltre / Cathe Neukum

Director: Cathe Neukum

Company: The Really Interesting Picture Company, Ltd.

Scientific Field: Wildlife

Year: 2009

Country: USA

'Nature's Greatest Defender' tells the story about one man's passionate fight to save our world. It's a film about his unwavering dedication to the incredible wildlife that we must continually struggle to protect. George Schaller returns to the sites of some of his iconic studies to see what has happened to some of these extraordinary animals and their habitats. Along the way, we will meet some of the people he influenced and see how they have managed to carry the torch Schaller lit.

65. Neuromarketing, Citizens under the Influence?

Original Title: Neuromarketing, des Citoyens sous Influence?

Duration: 53’12’’

Producer: Gabriel Turkieh

Director: Laurence Serfaty

Company: Altomedia

Scientific Field: Neuroscience

Year: 2009

Country: France

As marketers’ favorite target, our brain seems threatened with an always more effective decoding. Because the market studies do not guarantee the success of a product, marketers now turn to neurosciences. They confess that the objective is to decode the subconscious part of our brain to know our desires better. By using techniques as the magnetic resonance imaging, they try to identify advertisements and products which seduce and displease us.

Is neuromarketing a real threat of manipulation or a slightly hazy selling point of marketing?

Even if the debate is not settled, neuromarketing needs to remain under surveillance. Because, if badly used, some of the neurosciences applications could deal a new blow to personal freedoms. From France to the USA, via Italy and the United Kingdom, the film examines this new avatar of consumer society.

66. No Pesticides Week

Original Title: Semaine sans Pesticides

Duration: 1’15’’

Producer: Virginie Giachino

Director: Joris Clerté / Joyce Colson / Olivier Martin

Company: Doncvoilà

Scientific Field: Environment

Year: 2009

Country: France

A winged pesticide spray swoops down on a bug coveting an apple.

67. NOVA Science NOW 404

Original Title: NOVA Science NOW 404

Duration: 56’

Producer: Paula Apsell / Sam Fine / Julia Cort / Vin Liota

Director:

Company: WGBH / NOVA

Scientific Field: Wildlife / Genetics / Technologies / Nature / Biology / Medical / Climate and Change Effects

Year: 2009

Country: USA

Now in its fourth season, NOVA scienceNOW remains the only U.S. television program dedicated to reporting current research from the frontlines of science. Each episode consists of four magazine-style segments, including a profile of a scientist. In this episode, host Neil deGrasse Tyson explores “The Science of Picky Eaters.” Don't like broccoli? Your DNA may explain why. In “Smart Sea Lions and Talking Walruses,” marine mammals are wowing researchers with more than just circus tricks. NOVA scienceNOW profiles Sangeeta Bhatia, a biomedical engineer who, intrigued by the idea of artificial organs, uses computer-chip technology to craft tiny livers. And in “Capturing Carbon,” an 8th-grader's science project prompts her scientist father to develop a new way to pull excess CO2 out of the atmosphere.

68. NOVA Science NOW 406

Original Title: NOVA Science NOW 406

Duration: 56’

Producer: Paula Apsell / Sam Fine / Julia Cort / Vin Liota

Director:

Company: WGBH / NOVA

Scientific Field: Environment / Genetics / Technologies / Nature / Biology

Year: 2009

Country: USA

Now in its fourth season, NOVA scienceNOW remains the only U.S. television program dedicated to reporting current research from the frontlines of science. Each episode consists of four magazine-style segments, including a profile of a scientist. In this episode, host Neil deGrasse Tyson investigates why thousands of people are signing up to post their DNA sequences on the Internet, for all to see. Are they crazy? In “Algae Fuell,” NOVA scienceNOW asks In the search for alternatives to gasoline, are algae the answer? Scientists journeying deep beneath Arctic sea ice discover a world never before seen in Mystery of the Gakkel Ridge

NOVA scienceNOW profiles Yoky Matsuoka, a former tennis prodigy who aims to create advanced prosthetic limbs controlled by human thought.

69. One Ocean: Mysteries of the Deep

Original Title: One Ocean: Mysteries of the Deep

Duration: 43’42’’

Producer: Merit Jensen Carr

Director: Elise Swerhone

Company: Merit Motion Pictures

Scientific Field: Environment / Climate Change and Effetcts

Year: 2010

Country: Canada

Starting in the deepest part of the ocean, Mysteries of the Deep takes us to a secret and magical world beneath the surface where for the first time in human history, technology is allowing us to explore the darkness and crushing pressure of the deep seas to reveal a strange world full of mystery and surprise.

70. One Ocean: The Changing Sea

Original Title: One Ocean: The Changing Sea

Duration: 43’12’’

Producer: Merit Jensen Carr

Director: Erna Buffie

Company: Merit Motion Pictures

Scientific Field: Environment / Climate Change and Effetcts

Year: 2010

Country: Canada

From the majestic kelp forests of Monterey Bay to a magical night on a coral reef; from the storm-tossed waters of the mighty North Pacific to the crystal blue of the Mediterranean Sea: episode four of One Ocean explores some of the most stunning underwater locations in the world as it sets sail on a scientific race – a race to predict the fate of the global ocean and its amazing creatures.

Join us on a journey into the future as we explore The Changing Sea .

71. OpenVIBE – Brain–Computer Interaction with OpenVIBE Software

Original Title: Open VIBE – Interaction cerveau–ordinateur via le Logiciel OpenVIBE

Duration: 10’56’’

Producer: INRIA

Director: Christian Blonz

Company: INRIA

Scientific Field: Technologies

Year: 2009

Country: France

Demonstration of the possibilities offered by OpenViBE software, to improve the design and applications of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI). How to use OpenViBE is shown through three successive applications in which a participant can move virtual objects or navigate in a virtual museum by only using mental activities and "thoughts".

Then, the video shows the Graphical User-Interface of OpenViBE, which enables to design scenarios of Brain-Computer Interfaces easily.

72. Operation Deep Sea – Shedding Light in the Darkness

Original Title: Operation Deep Sea – Shedding Light in the Darkness

Duration: 52’

Producer: Annette Scheurich

Director: Annette Scheurich

Company: Marco Polo Film AG

Scientific Field: Deep Sea Science / Technologies / Exact Sciences / Nature

Year: 2008/2009

Country: Germany

This documentary reveals the latest developments in deep sea science, exploring the still largely unknown abysses of the ocean and its essential impact on our environment and climate. What kind of creatures can survive the enormous pressure and find food in total darkness? What are the chances and dangers of exploiting potentially enormous energy reserves on the sea floor? In what way is our climate influenced by the deep sea and how can we use such information for long term weather forecasts? In a world of dwindling resources and a changing climate, we need to know more about the depths of the element that makes this planet a blue one.

73. Outer Adventure, from Baby to Kiss, The

Original Title: The Outer Adventure, from Baby to Kiss

Duration: 90’

Producer: Thierry Berrod

Director: Thierry Berrod

Company: Mona Lisa Production

Scientific Field: Medical / Exact Sciences

Year: 2009

Country: France

When a mother looks in wonder at her newborn child, little does she imagine that fifteen years later her tiny one will have turned into a rebellious teenager, defending his or her ideas with conviction, listening to loud music, often hiding in his or her messed-up bedroom, and perhaps experiencing the first pangs of love.

With help from the best medical and scientific imagery gear, and the fine analysis from the most renowned specialists of the world, discover and understand the incredible distance covered by a human being in his first fifteen years of life and the many physical and psychological transformations he or she undertakes.

The comments from the foremost specialists contribute to each sequence, exploring new facets of the subject, and the social, cultural and emotional environments that shape our psychological development is treated with humour, using footage from films, advertising spots or visual sketches the viewer can relate to.

From the team that brought you The inner adventure: From Kiss to baby (granted many international awards among which the silver World Medal at the 2006 New York Film & Video Festival), embark on the fabulous journey that now takes us from birth to teenage, from the first awakening to the world, the mastering of movement, through the learning of language, socialization, education, to the first physical and psychological signs that mark the passage from childhood to adulthood and the mechanisms that determine our spectacular development.

74. Parasites: A User’s Guide

Original Title: Parasites: A User’s Guide

Duration: 26’31’’

Producer: Sharon Shattuck

Director: Sharon Shattuck

Company: Independent Production

Scientific Field: Environment / Experimental / Nature / Medical

Year: 2010

Country: USA

The word "parasite" comes with loads of vile connotations, but in nature, nothing is purely good or evil. In the 30-minute experimental documentary "Parasites: A User’s Guide," filmmaker Sharon Shattuck embarks on a journey to decode some of the most misunderstood creatures on earth.

The dramatic rise in autoimmune diseases, asthma, and allergies since the turn of the last century has confounded scientists, but some researchers think they have uncovered the key to controlling the skyrocketing disease rates: tiny parasitic worms called 'helminths.'

Using a blend of handmade and digital animation and indie music, Sharon dives headlong into the controversial discourse surrounding 'helminthic therapy,' with help from scientific researchers, active patients and a renegade entrepreneur named Jasper Lawrence. Through the seeming oxymoron of the 'helpful parasite,' Sharon questions the nature of our relationship with parasites--and suggests a new paradigm for the future.

"Parasites: A User’s Guide" is a film about ecology, healing, and worms.

75. Place without People, A

Original Title: A Place without People

Duration: 54’40’’

Producer: Rea Apostolides / Yuri Averof

Director: Andreas Apostolidis

Company: Anemon Productions

Scientific Field: Environment / Nature / Wildlife

Year: 2009

Country: Greece

A film about how the local population of Tanzania has been evicted to make way for the creation of the world's most famous nature reserves. Set in the famous Serengeti and the Ngorongoro crater, the film explores how the parks came to be and how western perceptions about nature radically altered both the East African landscape and society. The film focuses on the people who "shouldn't be there" not only because their voices are rarely heard but also because they are still being antagonised and excluded, while the tourist industry is rapidly depleting the area's natural resources.

76. Plug & Pray

Original Title: Plug & Pray

Duration: 91’

Producer: Judith Malek-Mahdavi

Director: Jens Schanze

Company: Mascha Film GbR

Scientific Field: Nanotechnology /Artificial Intelligence / Culture / Anthropology / Technologies

Year: 2009

Country: Germany

Since antiquity, humankind has dreamed of creating intelligent machines. The invention of the computer and the breathtaking pace of technological progress appear to be bringing the realisation of this dream within our grasp. Scientists and engineers across the orld are working on the development of intelligent robots, which are poised to become an integral part of all areas of human life. Robots are to do the housework, look after the children, care for the elderly... Yet, the ultimate vision goes even further, envisioning a merger of man and machine that will throw off the biological shackles of evolution and finally make eternal life a reality. The film delves into a world in which computer technology, robotics, biology, neuroscience, and developmental psychology merge. We visit the world’s leading experts in their laboratories in Japan, the USA, Italy and Germany. One of their very own, a pioneer of computer development and artificial intelligence, former MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum, has become one of the harshest critics of their visions of technological omnipotence. He created ELIZA, the world’s first speech recognition programme and mother of all chatbots, and witnessed how, within only a few decades, computers have been entrusted with all kinds of tasks, even decision-making. Wary of unstinting devotion to progress, he keeps asking: Do we need all this? And what will it mean to be human in a world run by machines?

77. Pocket Professor, The

Original Title: The Pocket Professor

Duration: 25’

Producer: Optic Verve

Director: Johnny Settle / Matt Howarth

Company: Optic Verve

Scientific Field: Nanotechnology / Exact Sciences

Year: 2004

Country: United Kingdom

Can 12 and 13 year-old pupils be taught Quantum Physics? Professor Bob Cywinski and Optic Verve think they can. The purpose of the Pocket Professor project is to provide a novel vehicle for introducing and presenting very advanced concepts and phenomenology in Physics to children in the 12-14 age group through a series of short films which combine live action, animation, seamlessly in a simple narrative style. Rather than adopting conventional "talking head" or "voice-over plus animation" methods of presentation, the Pocket Professor films use the device of a virtual holographic professor of physics who takes two teenagers and their teacher on a light-hearted interactive adventure through a world in which they experience the physical concepts at first hand. The most advanced filming techniques have been used to combine live action with an animated landscape in which the physical phenomena are encountered and experienced. The pilot film entitled the Quantum Cowboy, and which we show here, will focuses upon aspects of quantum physics, such as the structure of the atom, electron orbitals, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the emptiness of matter and particle-wave duality. The plot takes the adventurers down equentially from millimetre, to micron, nanometre and picometre length scales, and sees them encountering and interacting with silicon chips, buckyballs, atoms, electrons as both particles and waves, and nuclei. The Pocket Professor films, in their current form, are specifically not meant either to supplement or support the teaching of the science or physics curricula in schools. However, the Pocket Professor films are meant to introduce pupils to novel concepts and phenomena. They show pupils that the real physical world is a complex, but neverthelessinteresting and exciting place, and worthy of further thought and attention. Teachers may therefore wish to use the films to stimulate

general discussion of scientific topics and perhaps to motivate students to study physics. The Pocket Professor project has been supported by a research grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under the Partnership for Public Engagement Scheme. The story begins with a school coach outing to a science laboratory, where the children visit a scanning tunneling microscope demonstration. Two of the children, Harry and Fran, are more interested in their game station than listening to the Professor (Charlie). However, they begin to be engaged by the dramatic images of the atomic landscape, but being at the back of the class cannot see the images clearly. They have the bright idea of plugging a spare USB lead into the game station to download the images. Their teacher, Ruth, tries to stop them, but is too late. Ruth, Harry and Fran enter a virtual reality world and find themselves in a series of alien landscapes.

78. Rain Story, A

Original Title: A Rain Story

Duration: 49’

Producer: Eisuke Seki / Nao Sugawara / Yoshiaki Sugai

Director: Takashi Uchiura

Company: NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corp.)

Scientific Field: Nature

Year: 2008

Country: Japan

The beautiful, mysterious world of rain is visualized using the latest filming technology. Ultra-high speed cameras capture breathtaking images in Odaigahara, the rainiest area in Japan that receives an annual rainfall of 5,000 millimeters.

On the ground form lakes that only appear after summer heavy rains, allowing rare frogs to thrive. In winter, a unique natural phenomenon called “Glazed Frost” takes place if rain falls unfrozen and the air temperature is below zero.

Through poetic cinematography, we discover just how rain enriches the natural beauty in Japan, a country unusually blessed with rain.

79. Rapidly Changing Arctic, The

Original Title: L’Arctique en Pleine Mutation

Duration: 3x46’

Producer: Kristina von Hlatky

Director: Hélène Leroux

Company: Société Radio-Canada

Scientific Field: Environment

Year: 2009

Country: Canada

The Rapidly Changing Arctic: A three-episode series that takes viewers across an immense and spectacular, but little-known territory, which includes Russia’s Far North, Alaska, Norway and Canada.

Part 1 - The Rapidly Changing Arctic

The ice cap is melting far more quickly than predicted and the permafrost is thawing. The rush to develop the Arctic’s resources has begun. Who does the North belong to? The answer to this question depends in part on the work of geologists.

Part 2 - Arctic Transit

When will the major northern sea routes be open to commercial navigation? Who will decide on the rules to be followed?

Part 3 - Adapting to Change

A look at the fragile equilibrium of Arctic ecosystems on the eve of inevitable development.

80. Residence Bachelard

Original Title: Bachelard Residence, Darwinian Reverie

Duration: 31’

Producer: Dschubba / Inter-U Lille 1 / CRRAV

Director: Olivier Pagani

Company: Dschubba

Scientific Field: Experimental / Culture / Anthropology / Evolution / Death Cell

Year: 2009

Country: France

The City of Science campus. Someone lurks among the trees, someone who wants to make his house livable.

We can hear voices: one is talking about cells, the other about childhood homes.

But he only hears this question: how to accept death?

Can science and poetry do anything to change it?

Maybe so.

81. Revolution of the Throne, The

Original Title: The Revolution of the Throne

Duration: 52’

Producer: Thierry Berrod

Director: Quincy Russel

Company: Mona Lisa Production

Scientific Field: Environmnet / Culture / Anthropology / Technologies / Exact Science / Medical

Year: 2008

Country: France

The average 70 year old person will have spent approximately 6 months on the toilet. Double if they're constipated. But despite its importance, toilets and what goes in them remain taboo !

So for those of a delicate disposition we'll adopt code names… The toilet is the Throne, it's fragrant contents, the Rose.

Our journey begins with the seats of the Roman Empire, followed by royal thrones and state of the art Japanese creations.

Although London is the birthplace of the modern throne, today the flushing toilet is an ecological time bomb.

In India, new modern sewers abound. And the untouchables, the humble rose gathering caste, are re-training.

Another revolution of the throne is taking place. Where will you leave your roses in the future?

82. Roald Amundsen – Lost in the Arctic

Original Title: Roald Amundsen – Lost in the Arctic

Duration: 50’

Producer: Daniel Petry / H.W. Pausch

Director: Rudolph Herzog

Company: Context TV GmbH

Scientific Field: Exact Sciences / Biography of Explorer

Year: 2009

Country: Germany / Norway

“Roald Amundsen – Lost in the Arctic” is a film about the history and mystery of Roald Amundsen, the world’s greatest polar explorer. In the summer of 2009 a large scale navy expedition set out to try to uncover the truth behind the legendary explorer’s disappearance. The results of this research enterprise, a long time in the planning, are shown within this film.

83. Salvage Code Red “The Haven – Deep Trouble”

Original Title: Salvage Code Red “The Haven – Deep Trouble”

Duration: 47’79’’

Producer: Wael Dabbous

Director: Colin Campbell

Company: Steadfast Television

Scientific Field: Environment / Technologies / Nature

Year: 2009

Country: United Kingdom / International

In 1991, the MT Haven, an oil tanker, caught fire and sank when a pump exploded, just 1500 metres off the Italian port of Genoa. Six crew died and she broke into three pieces with a million barrels worth of oil on board. The oil spill was uncontrollable, the biggest the Mediterranean had ever seen. Beaches were painted black as far away as Monaco. In the years since, the top part of the wreck has become a playground for scuba divers, one of the top dive attractions in Europe.

But the Haven is also an environmental time bomb. Oil trapped inside her many cabins when she sank is being stirred up by the divers and is starting to leak out through her rusting hulk. An environmental disaster in the making as the beaches of the Italian Riviera are just a stone’s throw away.

Seven hundred and fifty kilometres away in Holland, Smit’s crack salvage team is responding to a code red call put out by the Italian government. Deep sea divers and marine engineers are scrambled. Their leader is Chris Bos, a twenty-five year diving veteran, but a rookie salvage master. A man, Smit feel is ideal with the huge experience needed to deal with this crisis.

The plan is complex. A barge is put in place to act as a base for diving operations. From here a team of divers will go down to seal up the captain’s quarters. This will act as a tank into which all the oil will be pumped. Chris Bos and his team test a saturation diving system in Rotterdam as many of the divers will be working at great depths. But can they get these detailed tests completed in time to send it out to Italy to save the Haven’s submerged cargo of oil?

During testing rookie diver Mike Dooge is sent down to check on the captain’s cabin as a well for the oil to be pumped into, but after coming back to the surface it is clear he is suffering from ‘the bends’ and has to be sent home, an early blow for the Smit team.

Eventually the Smit team complete the testing in Rotterdam, this saturation system diving bell is installed at the MT Haven wreck site off Genoa.

Saturation diving is a risky business and the Life Support Supervisor, Giulia Hammans, makes sure the divers are properly looked after. Sealed in and living for several weeks at a pressure 200 times that of our normal atmosphere, just one leaking valve could spell instant death for the divers. So she constantly monitors their vital signs.

The salvage team and their leader Chris Bos are being put under intense pressure to get the job done, as the Italian authorities want to open the nearby beaches to tourists in eight weeks time.

Eventually through placing a high tech “hottap”, one way valve system, at a strategic point on the wreck, the oil is successfully pumped out with a week to spare, meaning that the Italian resorts can open for business as planned and the Haven can become a wreck for divers to safely explore once more.

84. Secret Life of Chaos, The

Original Title: The Secret Life of Chaos

Duration: 60’

Producer: Nic Stacey

Director: Nic Stacey

Company: Furnace TV

Scientific Field: Mathematics

Year: 2010

Country: United Kingdom

Chaos theory has a bad name, conjuring up images of unpredictable weather, economic crashes and science gone wrong. But there is a fascinating and hidden side to Chaos, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand.

It turns out that chaos theory answers a question that mankind has asked for millennia - how did we get here?

In this documentary, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to uncover one of the great mysteries of science - how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? How does order emerge from disorder?

It's a mindbending, counterintuitive and for many people a deeply troubling idea. But Professor Al-Khalili reveals the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics. Amazingly, it turns out that the mathematics of chaos can explain how and why the universe creates exquisite order and pattern.

And the best thing is that one doesn't need to be a scientist to understand it. The natural world is full of awe-inspiring examples of the way nature transforms simplicity into complexity. From trees to clouds to humans - after watching this film you'll never be able to look at the world in the same way again.

85. Secrets of the Dead: Blackbeard’s Lost Ship

Original Title: Secrets of the Dead: Blackbeard’s Lost Ship

Duration: 54’10’’

Producer: David Johnson / Mark Fielder / Jared Lipworth

Director: David Johnson

Company: Quickfire Media Production for THIRTEEN in association with Five, Channel 4 International and WNET.ORG

Scientific Field: Archaeology

Year: 2009

Country: USA

Blackbeard was the most feared and infamous pirate of his day. In the early eighteenth century, the former British Privateer trolled the shipping lanes of the Atlantic, capturing, plundering and terrorizing all vessels in his path. From the deck of his flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, he commanded the seas and inspired fear in all who crossed his path. In 1717, he even blockaded the city of Charleston, cutting her off from the world and threatening to strangle her budding tobacco economy.

But soon after, he ran his flagship aground off the coast of North Carolina, and had to abandon her to the sea. Not long after, he was caught, executed and beheaded by a government posse.

300 years later, a group of marine archaeologists have discovered the remains of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, and their careful preservation and analysis of the remains—including cannons, guns, anchors, and even gold—are helping to solve the biggest mystery about Blackbeard’s rein: Had he ran his ship aground by accident, or was the grounding a carefully laid plot to double cross his own men and steal all their treasure for himself? Secrets of the Dead reveals the true story of Blackbeard’s Lost Ship.

86. Secrets of the Dead: Mumbai Massacre

Original Title: Secrets of the Dead: Mumbai Massacre

Duration: 54’10’’

Producer: Andrew Ogilvie / Andrea Quesnelle / Phil Craig / Jared Lipworth

Director: Victoria Midwinter Pitt

Company: Electric Pictures and Furnace Limited for THIRTEEN in association with Screen Australia, Screenwest Inc., Channel 4, Discovery, The History Channel UK, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and WNET.ORG

Scientific Field: Technologies

Year: 2009

Country: USA

Mumbai, November 26, 2008. What began as a typical day in a bustling cosmopolitan city turned into a horror-filled 60 hours of orchestrated chaos when terrorists infiltrated the city and rampaged through the train station, cafes, a Jewish center, and two of India’s most famous five star hotels. As police struggled to coordinate a response and journalists clamored to cover the story from the streets, victims trapped inside the hotels began making contact with the outside world using cell phones, text messages and Twitter. Their urgent and heart-wrenching messages begged for information and painted a gruesome picture of indiscriminate killing, unfettered brutality and mass confusion. But the victims weren’t the only ones communicating with the outside world. The terrorist leaders in Pakistan were watching the coverage of the attacks on the news, and relaying crucial information about the whereabouts of the victims back to their operatives on the ground.

87. Secrets of the Dead: The Airmen and the Headhunters

Original Title: Secrets of the Dead: The Airmen and the Headhunters

Duration: 54’10’’

Producer: Mark Radice / Harry Marshall / Laura Marshall / Jared Lipworth

Director: Mark Radice

Company: Icon Films for THIRTEEN in association with Channel 4, National Geographic Channels International and WNET.ORG.

Scientific Field: History

Year: 2009

Country: USA

In 1944, as war raged across the globe, an incredible drama unfolded in the remote jungles of Borneo. A US bomber was hit by Japanese anti-aircraft fire, and as the plane went down, the surviving ejected and parachuted into the wilderness. Pursued by Japanese soldiers, they were taken in and protected by members of the Dayak tribe – the so called, “wild men of Borneo,” who were infamous for their custom of hunting and smoking enemy heads. Months later, the airmen were found by an eccentric British major, who arrived in the jungle to set up a guerilla army, and built a runway out of bamboo so rescue planes could pick up the stranded airmen. Harder to believe than a fictional Hollywood thriller, their true tale is one of courage, survival and compassion from the most unlikely sources

88. Seed Warriors

Original Title: Seed Warriors

Duration: 52’

Producer: Mirjam von Arx

Director: Mirjam von Arx / Kathariana von Flotow

Company: ican films gmbh

Scientific Field: Climate Change and Effects / Biodiversity

Year: 2009

Country: Switzerland

By 2050 temperatures worldwide are expected to rise by at least 2 degrees. This will result in a drop in food production by up to 30 per cent in some regions. But global food demand will have doubled. How will we feed the world?

Is the "Doomsday Vault", built in the Norwegian permafrost, and containing seeds from around the world, a practical way of safeguarding the world's biodiversity or a utopian ideal?

In SEED WARRIORS we hear from the scientists behind this ambitious project and travel to Kenya to examine what the Svalbard Global Seed Vault can contribute to the fight against hunger.

89. Sentinel Animals – Warning! Air Pollution

Original Title: Sentinel Animals – Warning ! Air Pollution

Duration: 52’

Producer: Thierry Berrod

Director: Kamel Kezadri

Company: Mona Lisa Production

Scientific Field: Environmnet / Wildlife/ Nature / Exact Sciences

Year: 2008

Country: France

From plants to animals, a multitude of living organisms are being studied by scientists trying to gain a better understanding of atmospheric pollution.

More than a century ago, the canary, used by miners, demonstrated its extreme sensitivity to gas in coal mines. Today, lichens, mosses, birds of prey and cattle are the focus of highly advanced research projects being carried out by the scientific community worldwide.

But the effects on ecosystems and human health are already dramatic.

In the Netherlands, researchers such as Professor Marcel Visser emphasise the impact of global warming, which is disrupting food web cohesion and contributing to the imminent extinction of migratory birds such as the flycatcher.

In France, researchers at the French national research agencies, INRA and CNRS, are using bees as sentinels for urban pollution; in Spain, Dr. Marta Lopez Alonso has proven, through her experiments with cows and dogs, the extreme toxicity of coal-burning thermal power plants. In the United States, homing pigeons equipped with GPS systems and cameras transmit information to scientists on the level of air pollution in major Californian cities.

Found in the natural biotope or used as a means of monitoring, sentinel organisms for air pollution contribute to the evaluation and prevention of toxic risks.

90. Sentinel Animals – Warning! Earthquake

Original Title: Sentinel Animals – Warning ! Earthquake

Duration: 52’

Producer: Thierry Berrod

Director: Kamel Kezadri

Company: Mona Lisa Production

Scientific Field: Environmnet / Wildlife/ Nature / Exact Sciences

Year: 2008

Country: France

In Japan, people are convinced that the great Kanto earthquake that ravaged Tokyo in 1923 causing 140,000 deaths will soon be repeated.

So, in addition to the regular training sessions offered to the public, certain scientists are hoping that their studies of animal behaviours will result in lives being saved.

Preventing the disaster is impossible, but knowing how to decipher the signals given by animals remains one possible means of warning the population of an imminent earthquake.

From Professor Ohta’s dog-cloning project to the EQ-sign, the first earthquake detector directly inspired by animal behaviour, not forgetting Professor Nagao’s studies of the catfish, all potential solutions are examined.

In China, the warning signals that animals can transmit before an earthquake are well recognised. The first Chinese earthquake detector, decorated with dragons and frogs, dates back to 132 BC!

Back in 1975, Chinese authorities and scientists, prompted by their observations of bizarre reactions in animals, evacuated 150,000 people from the city of Haisheng before an earthquake that razed almost 90% of the city.

In Beijing, Professor Li is successfully using budgerigars as auxiliaries to earthquake prevention instruments. Elsewhere, snakes and pigeons are serving as sentinel animals.

And throughout the country, most zoos are required to record abnormal behaviours in the captive animals and to transmit them to regional seismic bureaus, thus contributing to a gigantic earthquake prevention network.

91. Sentinel Animals – Warning! Soil Pollution

Original Title: Sentinel Animals – Warning ! Soil Pollution

Duration: 52’

Producer: Thierry Berrod

Director: Kamel Kezadri

Company: Mona Lisa Production

Scientific Field: Environmnet / Wildlife/ Nature / Exact Sciences

Year: 2008

Country: France

A multitude of living organisms, from the microscopic to the mammal, survive in an extraordinary way in polluted soils.

These bio-indicators are a precious aid to ecotoxicologists trying to increase their understanding of pollutants and the risks they present to human populations and ecosystems.

The bestiary used by researchers comprises many species, from mammals such as the wild rat, to the essential earthworm, the spider that has woven an alliance with science, and bacteria, weapons of the future.

The souvenir of human activity, soil pollution will gradually reveal its secrets to scientists, thanks to these infallible reporters, capable of all types of genetic adaptations enabling them to survive in hostile environments.

92. Sentinel Animals – Warning! Tsunami

Original Title: Sentinel Animals – Warning ! Tsunami

Duration: 52’

Producer: Thierry Berrod

Director: Kamel Kezadri

Company: Mona Lisa Production

Scientific Field: Environmnet / Wildlife/ Nature / Exact Sciences

Year: 2008

Country: France

With 175,000 dead and 125,000 missing, the tsunami of 26 December 2004 in the Indian Ocean is engraved in human memories.

But after the disaster, very few animal victims were found.

What happened before the tsunami? Were the animals able to sense the arrival of the killer wave? In that case, why were humans so unaware of the signals?

Deep-sea fish seen in shallow waters; elephants that felt the vibrations several hours before the arrival of the wave; tourists saved by elephants in Thailand, visitors alerted by birds in the Yala National Park in Sri Lanka; hundreds of witnesses in Thailand and Sri Lanka who reported disturbing animals behaviours before the tsunami.

Did the animals really sense the impending disaster?

Why then were certain marine species such as turtles trapped and swept inland? Why did elephants being tracked by satellite at the same moment on the south coast of Sri Lanka not react?

Between eye-witnesses and scientists, the opinions remain divided. Will science one day be capable of developing a tsunami warning system that relies on animals?

93. Sentinel Animals – Warning! Water Pollution

Original Title: Sentinel Animals – Warning ! Water Pollution

Duration: 52’

Producer: Thierry Berrod

Director: Vincent Amouroux

Company: Mona Lisa Production

Scientific Field: Environmnet / Wildlife/ Nature / Exact Sciences

Year: 2008

Country: France

Water covers almost 80% of our planet, which is why it is called the Blue Planet. Water is also the principal constituent of living organisms and an element that is indispensable for all forms of life. Nevertheless, only a tiny part of all the earth’s water is fit for our own use. Drinking water therefore deserves all our attention if we are to save and preserve it. However, all the different types of pollution generated by humans find their way into water.

Most of these contaminants are then transmitted to different levels of the food chain. The observation of certain species of aquatic animals can thus provide us with information on the presence of these pollutants. We call them sentinel animals.

From benthic macroinvertebrates to killer whales, our documentary examines the sentinel animals that already warn us of the risks we face with these contaminants. Did you know that in the United States, the safety of millions of people depends on the fins of the pumpkinseed fish? Did you know that a high proportion of the belugas in the Saint Lawrence River have cancer? And did you know that the killer whales living off Vancouver Island are the marine mammals with the highest level of PCB contamination on the planet?

This documentary draws up an alarming report of the impact of human activity on the aquatic environment. Will we know how to take into account the warning signals that these sentinel animals send us in order to preserve a resource as precious as water?

94. Small can be Big – A French Cheesy Perspective

Original Title: Small can be Big – A French Cheesy Perspective

Duration: 03’

Producer: Irene Suarez-Martinez

Director: Christopher Ewels

Company: Institute of Materials Jean Rouxel

Scientific Field: Nanotechnology

Year: 2009

Country: France

Nanocheese is a lighthearted “French” introduction to the world of nanoscience. It explains one of the many fascinating properties of nanomaterials: the large surface area through a simple example with a piece of cheese.

95. Soul Birds

Original Title: Seelenevögel

Duration: 89’30’’

Producer: Stefan Tolz / Thomas Riedelsheimer

Director: Thomas Riedelsheimer

Company: Filmpunkt GmbH

Scientific Field: Culture / Anthropology / Medical

Year: 2009

Country: Germany

For 15-year old Pauline, 10-year old Richard and 6-year old Lenni, life means something very special. They suffer from leukemia and they are facing death. Pauline writes poems, Richard knows everything about his disease and Lenni ´s charm fills any room. Three strong young people with all their plans, hopes, triumphs and defeats. An unsusual cinematic approach to a situation that is not all about the disease but instead the search for life’s energy and power.

96. Stone Age Artists, the Magdalenian Masters

Original Title: Stone Age Artists, the Magdalenian Masters

Duration: 52’

Producer: Thierry Berrod

Director: Philippe Plailly

Company: Mona Lisa Production

Scientific Field: Culture / Anthropology / Technologies / Exact Sciences

Year: 2009

Country: France

Our forefathers gradually devoted more and more time to art, decorating their objects and their places of residence. As for the Magdalenians – ancestors that settled in large areas of Europe between 18,000 and 10,000 years B.C. - art was amazingly developed. The sculpted low relief of the Roc-aux-Sorciers site (in south-western France) – a unique masterpiece – is proof that a golden age of prehistory did actually exist.

Using this monumental sculpted frieze as a starting point, “Stone Age Artists: The Magdalenian Masters” explores the various facets of the Magdalenian culture, its potential influence across Europe and beyond, and the message conveyed by the creations of this civilization of hunters & pickers: illustrations of animals, female figures and enigmatic human profiles…

97. Sunday with Darwin, A

Original Title: Un Dimanche avec Darwin

Duration: 40’30’’

Producer: Louis Faure

Director: Hélène Leroux

Company: Société Radio-Canada

Scientific Field: Exact Sciences

Year: 2009

Country: Canada

To celebrate the 150th anniversary in 2009 of the publication of The Origin of

Species, we take a look at Charles Darwin—the great man, his life and his

revolutionary thinking—via an introductory tour of the places that marked his life

in England. We also provide the basics of the theory of evolution by natural

selection as Darwin presented it, gauging its relevance in today’s world of

science.

98. Super Photon for Maxi Watt

Original Title: Super Photon pour Maxi Watt

Duration: 28’

Producer: CNRS Images

Director: Dalaise Marcel

Company: CNRS Images

Scientific Field: Chemistry / Physics

Year: 2009

Country: France

99. Synbiosafe (Synthetic Biology and its Safety and Ethical Aspects)

Original Title: Synbiosafe (Synthetic Biology and its Safety and Ethical Aspects)

Duration: 38’19’’

Producer: Marcus Schmidt

Director: Marcus Schmidt / Camillo Meinhart

Company: IDC

Scientific Field: Genetics

Year: 2009

Country: Austria

Synthetic Biology is the attempt to design and create new life forms - life the world has never seen before – not found in nature. Discover a living technology that will change the way we think about livings systems and machines in the future. With many anticipated benefits and a high impact on society, the societal and ethical aspects of this discipline, are becoming increasingly prominent.

„SYNBIOSAFE“ gives a fundamental insight into this future technology and its real world applications. The documentary film also sheds a light on the benefits and risks of synthetic biology and what it means for our future society. It shows not only what synthetic biology is, but also what it could mean for our society, economy and the environment.

100. Tchernobyl, une Histoire Naturelle?

Original Title: Tchernobyl, une Histoire Naturelle?

Duration: 90’

Producer: Caméra Lucida

Director: Luc Riolon

Company: Arte France

Scientific Field: Environment

Year: 2010

Country: France

Quelle explication donner a l’apparente recolonisation par la Nature à Tchernobyl? Dans cette zone d’exclusion interdite aux humains, dans ce monde étrange ou la radioactivité se déplace en fonction des saisons, les zoologues et radioécologues font de surprenantes découvertes.

101. Tracking their Silent Voices

Original Title: Auf der leisen Spur der Schnabelwale

Duration: 44’11’’

Producer: Stefan Geier

Director: Stefan Geier

Company: Ton und Film / Bayerischer Rundfunk

Scientific Field: Wildlife / Conservation / Marine Biology

Year: 2010

Country: Germany / Portugal

How far would you sail to unveil the secret of a mysterious species? Even though nobody knows where and how it lives?

This is the story about a passionate quest. The quest of an international team of scientists, who needs 7 months of effort, endurance, adventurous lifestyle and scientific intuition to fulfil their scientific dream: finding and analysing one of the least explored species of the world - beaked whales.

Under the scientific lead of British marine biologist Oliver Boisseau, with the help of Dutch marine biologist Nienke van Geel, with the experience of German skipper Astrid Lurweg and British Engineer Mat Jerram they will make it:

on a small research sailing boat they will be using acoustic techniques only, they will break new ground in gently exploring and protecting the hi ghly endangered beaked whales, that are unlike many other whale species threatened from extinction.

The documentary shows never before broadcasted underwater footage of the rarely known beaked whales and viewers can listen, how a beaked whale sounds in a depth of over 1500 meters!

102. Un Fueguito, the Story of César Milstein

Original Title: Un Fueguito, la Historia de César Milstein

Duration: 69’30’’

Producer: Ana Fraile

Director: Ana Freile

Company: Pulpo Films

Scientific Field: Medical

Year: 2009

Country: Argentina

From the passion for filmmaking and César Milstein’s passion for science and art merged the idea of a story centered on the challenges of men when they work researching and creating in freedom. He died in 2002 and could not finish the film.

He was the kind of person that leaves a trace and goes beyond as a consequence of his work, his concentration, his obstinacy and tenancy. His achievements along all these years of research produced countless benefits and practical application in medicine, biology and immunology; and they meant an advance in the developing of scientific knowledge. However, his spirit of joy, adventure and questioning not only brought challenges to science, but also filled the family in Argentina and friends around the world with the most exquisite and unforgettable experiences in life.

103. Viruses and Plants

Original Title: Piante e Virus

Duration: 10’04’’

Producer: EXTRACAMPUS TV / Turin University TV

Director: Prof. Gian Paolo Caprettini

Company: CNR Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR)

Scientific Field: Genetics

Year: 2009

Country: Italy

104. Voyage to the Planets: #3 Saturn

Original Title: Voyage Guide to the Planets: #3 Saturn

Duration: 50’24’’

Producer: Richard Smith

Director: Richard Smith

Company: Essential Media and Entertainment

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy

Year: 2010

Country: Australia

Take a trip to Saturn, the planetary pin-up boy, and not only do you get a ringside seat to the greatest spectacle in the solar system, but a close encounter with two extraordinary moons. Tiny Enceladus is making all the headlines as the must-see moon these days. It’s the little moon that has it all: enormous geysers of water and ice shooting into space from the south pole point to a warm salty ocean beneath the surface and, perhaps, a real possibility of life. Even more earth-like and yet far more alien is Titan, with a thick atmosphere and weather. Potentially an easier surface to explore even than Mars, this is the only other world we know that you could visit without a spacesuit. Rug up for the cold and fly a hot air balloon in Titanian skies, trek across vast dune fields, or row across a Titanian lake. Just don’t fall in or get caught in the rain: it’s liquid natural gas out here, not water, and it’ll freeze you as hard as rock.

105. Voyage to the Planets: #4 Neptune & Uranus

Original Title: Voyage Guide to the Planets: #4 Neptune & Uranus

Duration: 50’

Producer: Richard Smith

Director: Richard Smith

Company: Essential Media and Entertainment

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy

Year: 2010

Country: Australia

Got time for a 24 year vacation? Then consider a journey to our most distant planets, the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. There’s only ever been one Earthly visitor to this ice zone, the Voyager mission, launched in 1977. What would it be like to follow in its wake, for a human to undertake one of the greatest journeys in space exploration? How would you get there? What would you see? And would you ever survive? Strap yourselves in for an incredible voyage to the outer Solar System.

106. Voynich Code, The

Original Title: Das Voynich Manuskript

Duration: 50’18’’

Producer: Walter Koehler

Director: Klaus T. Steindl / Andreas Sulzer

Company: ORF – Universum / NHU

Scientific Field: History

Year: 2009

Country: Austria

A mysterious handwritten book, illustrated with occult drawings and penned by an unknown author in a language even the most ingenious cryptographers have yet failed to decipher: Discovered in 1912 by the Polish-America bibliophile Wilfrid Michael Voynich the manuscript remained the most mystifying document ever found for almost a century.

The 200 pages of the manuscript show several unique characteristics: They are hand-written without a single correction using a system of letters in reoccurring patterns typical of human languages. William Friedman who deciphered the Japanese "Purple-Code" in World War II was one of the first to tackle the Voynich manuscript. Dozens of cryptographers, statisticians, linguists and cultural historians have also tried their talent. All of them failed.

Most of them stuck to the text. Now analysing the illustrations will give a new angle to decoding the manuscript. Wrapped around the text on almost every page there are drawings of plants, star constellations of the zodiac, bathing female figures and structures reminiscent of piping systems and microscopic views. Do these patterns hold the key? For this Docu-Drama from the makers of “The Vampire Princess” a team of scientists takes a new interdisciplinary approach to crack the Voynich code - including the first forensic examination of the book itself.

107. Welcome to Nanoworld

Original Title: Bienvenue dans le Nanomonde

Duration: 52’

Producer: Laurent Mini

Director: Charles-Antoine De Rouvre / Jérôme Scemla

Company: La Compagnie des Taxi Brousse

Scientific Field: Nanotechnology

Year: 2009

Country: France

A new world is coming into being. A scientific revolution is in full swing – a revolution that could profoundly change our future on a daily basis and in many areas. A revolution that is already allowing us to conceive of smaller, lighter, less expensive products; that promises more powerful computers and faster communication, not to mention more effective medical treatments, a cleaner environment, a more pleasant lifestyle… A world that shall develop ever-smaller new materials and components, build new molecules atom-by-atom and assemble them to exploit new phenomena that will only appear on the nanometer's scale.

Matter behaves differently on this scale. Here reign laws of quantum physics that challenge logic and imagination, the laws that let flies cling to ceilings, make lotus leaves waterproof, let computers fit on soup spoons.

Nanotechnology on Google? There are 18-million pages on the subject. Nanotechnologies have arrived. Apple was the first company to make them fashionable with its i-Pod, but nano particles are already ubiquitous: in the Code Duo Intel processors in PC's and Macs, in tennis rackets, golf clubs, cans of paint, anti-streak coatings, waterproof textiles, and even . . . condoms. In all, no fewer than 250 products on the market.

Where did this revolution start? What is nanoscience? How are nanocomponents manufactured? What are they good for? What is the developmental prognosis? What are the scientific, human, social and economic implications? Why and how will nanotechnologies improve our daily life? And what risks and ethical problems do they raise?

We shall find the answers to these questions on a fantastic journey around the world encountering dedicated scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners. We will accompany them as they penetrate the secrets of nature by manipulating matter on a molecular and atomic level.

We will tour the fields of health, energy, industry, communication . . . for there seem to be no limit to the applications of this new technology. Our investigation, a hybrid of the travel documentary and the scientific documentary, will plunge us into the universe of the infinitely small, a universe that promises to transform radically our relationship to the world and beyond, along with the way we see it.

108. Whale Ahoy! Deep-Sea Diving with Moby Dick

Original Title: Pottwal Ahoi

Duration: 28’

Producer: Volker Barth / Susanne Richter

Director: Volker Barth

Company: Anthro Media

Scientific Field: Environment / Wildlife / Exact Sciences / Nature / Enhancing Science

Year: 2008

Country: Germany

“The Sperm Whale Mystery” is not a typical whale film…

Sperm whales are mesmerizing animals, with the biggest brains on the planet and a proven use of language. Barely surviving the hunts of our ancestors, only now are we starting to learn more about their behaviour.

This investigative science documentary takes us into a new dimension of whale-research. For the first time leading marine biologists show how for 62% of their lifetime, these whales hunt uniquely at depths of 1000 meters and more, where the pressure would instantly crush a human being. Now new tools allow us to see what no camera has ever seen before.

Yet new technologies and data also allow the re-investigation of long lasting questions: What might have caused the sudden increase of strandings along the North Sea since the late 1980s by more than 1000%? Why did normally deep-diving sperm whales leave their natural migration routes in the Atlantic? And why did they suddenly enter the shallow North Sea, which at a maximum depth of only 200m is an unnatural habitat for deep diving whales?

Strandings are also sad moments for scientists. Autopsies revealed no unusual quantities of parasites or contaminants, and neither solar nor lunar cycles could explain these anomalous events. Only now have these dedicated marine biologists started to re-examine the overlooked evidence: Could it be a mere coincidence that the oil industries began to intensify their search for oil at the same time in this ocean region?

To find oil fields thousands of meters below the ocean floor the oil-searchers produce extremely loud shock waves. From surface ships they send them down to the ocean floor, where they are strong enough to penetrate thousands of meters into the muddy ground. But these extreme sound waves also travel sideways over 1000km in every direction. Sperm whales have hunted for millions of years through almost silent oceans, navigating through pitch-dark deep-seas to hunt for prey, while migrating thousands of kilometres each year between hunting grounds.

Could this increasing man-made noise be affecting them, even chasing them away from their natural migration routes? Could our ever-rising need for oil be driving them increasingly into the shallow North Sea? Are these sensitive giants trying to avoid the noise, as we would if jack-hammers started to slam down close by? The Sperm Whale Mystery follows independent scientists on their search for answers while also learning more about these mesmerizing animals, as ever seen in public before...

109. What is a Black Hole?

Original Title: Qu’est–ce qu’un Trou Noir?

Duration: 4’41’’

Producer: Virginie Giachino

Director: Marc Chevalier

Company: Doncvoilà

Scientific Field: Space / Astronomy

Year: 2009

Country: France

What is a black Hole ? is an animated film directed by Marc Chevalier. It was coproduced by the French audiovisual production company Doncvoilà, in conjunction with the Société française d'astronomie et d'astrophysique, the Paris and Côte d’Azur observatories, and the CNRS – Laboratoire Leprince Ringuet - Ecole polytechnique.

The film gives a 4-minute answer to this rather intriguing question : What is a black Hole ? The story revolves around 4 main characters: the man, the monkey, the black hole and the cosmic monster. The man and the monkey bring a reality element to the story; they are the earthly witnesses, forever conniving, but never quite understanding the nature of the events that affect them. They are at the same time fascinated and frightened by the different phenomenons they observe, so they try to decipher the structure of matter, of the cosmos and of black holes. The cosmic monster represents the dark side, the fears which are being awakened in our minds by the unfathomable mystery of the universe. The monster eventually proves to be an engaging character, who becomes the butt of the man and the monkey’s mischievous pranks.

110. Wild Balkans

Original Title: Wilder Balkan

Duration: 51’

Producer: Rita Schlamberger

Director: Michael Schlamberger

Company: ScienceVision Filmproduktions GmbH

Scientific Field: Wildlife / Nature

Year: 2009

Country: Austria

For centuries the Balkans has been a region ravaged by wars and conflict. Yet,

paradoxically, those wars are what has allowed much of the region to remain as a

pristine and untouched wilderness.

The landscape belongs more to Middle Earth than modern Europe. Many wild

animals that have vanished from the rest of Europe have their last stronghold here.

WILD BALKANS is an enthralling and stunning visual exploration of an area where

there has been little but bad news for centuries. This spectacular film explores the

region, its landscapes and the wild creatures that have lived unchanged for centuries,

and holds out great hope that they will survive into the future.

111. Wireless Pioneer, The – Guglielmo Marconi 1874 -1937

Original Title: Il Pionere del Wireless

Duration: 52’

Producer: Giusi Santoro

Director: Enza Negroni

Company: POPcult

Scientific Field: Technologies / History

Year: 2009

Country: Italy

The wireless pioneer is a documentary that tells the life of one of the greatest inventors of our time: Guglielmo Marconi. Giorgio Comaschi, the narrator and "eyewitness" of an extraordinary life alternate some funny moments, fictionalized anecdotes and observations on the great inventor Bolognese to the chronicles of his life, disclosing the importance of his discoveries, which enable the audience of nowadays to have the mobile phones, the remote controls, the telepass and the satellite technology. The director Enza Negroni mix theatrical drama, film technique and news reporting, showing to the folk memory the life and the real places of Marconi: the first discoveries and the early success, the moments of great suffering, the change of character and way of life, the international aspects, until arriving to the final Act. The result reveals a different and unknown, more human Marconi, where, closed to the defects of ordinary men is evident, however, the genius of the greatest inventors of our era.