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The Real Tomb Hunters: Snakes, Curses and Booby Traps

Fighting Nazis; grabbing golden treasure; fleeing angry natives; dodging pitfalls in a booby-trapped temple--we all know how fictional explorers and archaeologists spend their days. But does real life compare? We follow some of the most daring archaeologists and take on the dangers they face--Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass steps into a booby-trapped tomb; American Arthur Demarest fights looters in the jungles of Cancuen; and in Chiapas, angry villagers kidnap Australian-born Peter Mathews. We also examine stories of past explorers who helped shape the "Indiana Jones" stereotype--paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews battled venomous snakes and Mongol bandits in the Gobi Desert; John Pendlebury, the British archaeologist, fought Nazis on Crete; and Sylvanus Morely, who was the first American archaeologist/spy. There are no special effects, no stuntmen, and no retakes...and for these real-life archaeologists, no guarantee they'll survive for a sequel.

The Real Tomb Hunters: Snakes, Curses and Booby Traps

NR 2006
Vijaya

Vija Vetra is the famous Latvian dancer and choreographer. She was admired for her dancing by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. She was loved by the world famous American poet Robert Lowell. She was the first to introduce sacred dance into church services in many different countries around the world. She has learned to cross freely the cultural boundaries, feeling equally at home both in Eastern and Western dance traditions. Born in Latvia, she has spent her life in different parts of the world and the camera traces her in the film (from India in 70ies where she had been renowned as "Vijaya", to New York, Greece, and Latvia today). The film is as colorful as her life: loud and happy like the feelings aroused by her splendid performance, deep and unknowable like her inner world, and sad, quiet and calm like loneliness itself?

Vijaya

NR 2004
Lotte Reiniger: Homage to the Inventor of the Silhouette Film

It’s quite telling that Katja Raganelli chose the animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger as her gateway figure into German cinema’s past. Like Alice Guy-Blaché, she was prolific, and worked in all kinds of formats, including commercials and animated interludes for fiction features. More than Guy-Blaché, though, she was an inventor of forms and techniques whose genius was admired by the likes of Bertolt Brecht. It says a lot about film history that Reiniger remains still a specialists’ darling…

Lotte Reiniger: Homage to the Inventor of the Silhouette Film

7.0 2001
Lions Behaving Badly

We think of the lion as the king of beasts - the perfect predators - built to make a swift clean kill - but think again. Now spectacular footage reveals another side to this hunters killing power. We follow a family of lion cubs as they start out in life. Seven out of the eight cubs are male - for them the clock is ticking, within two years they need to learn to hunt before setting out and finding new territories of their own, to avoid treading on the toes of the dominant pride male. The cubs hunting lessons are perhaps not what you might expect; instead of ambushing their prey and quickly despatching with a clean bite to the throat, these lions wrestle their victim to the ground and tuck in before the hapless beast is dead. When the prey is a young elephant, it means a slow and painful death. Are these lions behaving badly or is it simply that this is what lions do?

Lions Behaving Badly

NR 2005
Northern Lights

Just before winter cloaks everything in the Arctic night, a few hours of daylight linger in late autumn in the village of Sumskoy Posad, one thousand kilometres north of Saint Petersburg, in Karelia, on the shores of the White Sea. Linked to the rest of the country by a vague muddy track and a stretch of railway line, the village lives in a suspended and mysterious dimension. This is the Russia of endless forests and potato fields. A few robust and uncompromising characters work calmly there, driven by no vital needs. This is a still happy and cold Russia.

Northern Lights

6.5 2008
Dino Death Trap

The Pit of Death is what some scientists are calling it, others "Dinosaur Pompeii". Envision dinosaur corpses stacked one on top of each other, piled four and five high. But not just any old dinosaurs, new, well-preserved skeletons - many that have never been seen before. A bizarre T. rex ancestor, a triceratops ancestor, an ancient crocodilian and nearly 40 different species dating back 160 million years, a time in dinosaur history of which little is known. The graves of these new species are uncovered deep in the dry and desolate Junggar Basin of western China and a team of palaeontologists unearth answers to this virtual black hole in dinosaur evolution. Watch as the bones are examined, reconstructed and brought back to life, using high resolution CGI, and slowly probe the mystery of who these dinosaurs were, how they died and what they can tell us about the Lost Age of the Dinosaurs.

Dino Death Trap

8.0 2007
Hippo Hell

The dry season is always a struggle for the animals in the in the Luangwa Valley in Zambia - forced to share the last remaining water in the river. This is most strongly felt by the hippo population as they continually need to submerge their overheating bodies. This year the low river will be the least of their worries: An unseen killer is waiting to attack. The congested river and extreme circumstances provide the perfect conditions for an Anthrax epidemic to strike. Before the return of the rains the dominant hippo bull will witness the devastation of a fifth of his pod. This season a young mother and her calf and two brothers must negotiate these terrible odds and try to survive this...Hippo Hell.

Hippo Hell

10.0 2007
Way of Beauty - Shakti Timeless

"Shakti Timeless" tells the story of the Indo-Western music group Shakti. Formed in 1975, the group pioneered a groundbreaking and highly influential musical East-meets-West approach. In the 1970s, the group, whose name means creative intelligence, beauty and power, consisted of legendary British jazz guitarist John McLauglin, North Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain, violinist L. Shankar and percussionist T.H. Vinayakram, the latter two hailing from South India. Together, they created a fluid and organic sound that managed to successfully combine seemingly incompatible traditions. After a number of very successful live concerts and albums they disbanded. The group was reformed in 1997 under the name Remember Shakti with new talents from India, such as V. Selvaganesh, who replaced his father Vinayakram on percussion, and the young prodigy U. Shrinivas, who replaced L. Shankar. In 2000, the young Indian classical singer Shankar Mahadevan joined as the first vocal element in the group.

Way of Beauty - Shakti Timeless

NR 2006
Seasonal Workers

Since the end of World War II, Switzerland has largely depended on immigrant workers from Southern Europe – first from Italy, then Spain and finally Portugal and the former Yugoslavia. Many of them were “seasonal workers”, a unique status in Europe and one that was particularly iniquitous. These workers were allowed to stay in Switzerland only nine months of the year and were obliged to return home for the other three months; they were not allowed to change jobs; they could not have their own accommodation but had to live in what was provided by their employers; they were not allowed to bring their spouses and children with them. Tens of thousands of people lived in sub-standard accomodation that was often dangerous and endured particularly tough work conditions, especially in construction, but also in agriculture and the hotel industry.

Seasonal Workers

NR 2003
Viva Tonal: The Dance Age

"I'm a cultured woman, travelling about footloose and fancy-free…”So begins a lilting tune from Taiwan's“Dance Age”of the 1920s and 1930s, a paradoxical time when the island's occupation by Japan also brought youth culture and a measure of artistic freedom. Women smoked cigarettes, love scandals were rife, and risqué Taiwanese pop was born. Embarking on a voyage to visit the surviving singers, composers and record aficionados of the era, this lively historical documentary mixes engaging interviews with catchy songs, haunting period footage, and reenactments of the unrequited romance between the adored chanteuse Chun Chun and her songwriter CHEN Chun-Yu.

Viva Tonal: The Dance Age

NR 2003
Mozartballs

MOZARTBALLS is a light-hearted tribute to Mozart and explores what he symbolizes in our age. The film features curious characters that embody the spirit of Mozart - from a retired Swiss school teacher obsessed by all things Mozart, to an ex-pop musician in Oklahoma who believes that her body is actually inhabited by Mozart's spirit; from a computer genius in California whose software has created a new Mozart cello concerto, to an Austrian astronaut who carried a score of "The Magic Flute" and delicious chocolate 'Mozartkugeln' into space. These are the individuals who inhabit MOZARTBALLS and through their strange and, at times, very moving stories, the viewer will be exposed to the liveliness, the magic and the obsession that Moart has become to so many music fans today. For them, Mozart defines the very essence of beauty in music, but he has become something more than that. Mozart is an icon, and for many he is still very much alive!

Mozartballs

NR 2006
Fasinpat, fábrica sin patrón

In the province of Neuquén, in Argentine Patagonia, workers at the Zanon ceramics factory opposed their employer's layoff plan, which included laying off more than half of their workforce to avoid permanent closure due to the crisis. In October 2001, the workers took over the factory and have since continued production without a boss. They thus demonstrated that it is possible, in times of crisis, to offer work to others and contribute to the continued solidarity of society when the State fails to provide solutions.

Fasinpat, fábrica sin patrón

10.0 2004
Vienna's Forests - Jewels of Green

Vienna is surrounded by nature – a green belt encloses the city and contributes to the high quality of life in Austria’s capital.However, it is not just these woods the citizens of Vienna can name their own. The city of Vienna also owns the protected source areas in the Hochschwab and Schneeberg-Rax region, where Vienna’s Water comes from.2005 marks the 100th anniversary of the creation of the green belt around Vienna. On that occasion Georg Riha and his team have produced this ORF-UNIVERSUM documentary, commissioned by the City of Vienna.Sit back and enjoy the rough beauty of the Hochschwab region, the majestic peak of Schneeberg, picturesque autumn sceneries, the „classic“ Vienna Woods and the fascinating winter wonderland of the Danube Wetland Forest National Park.

Vienna's Forests - Jewels of Green

NR 2005
Quincy Jones: In the Pocket

Composer, record, TV and film producer, arranger, instrumentalist, magazine founder and multi-media entrepreneur - Quincy Jones has done it all. In his 50-year career, he has won 26 Grammy awards and an Emmy, earned seven Oscar nominations and helped ignite the career of megastar Michael Jackson. American Masters takes an all-access look at this remarkable star of the world stage. Narrated by Harry Belafonte, Quincy Jones: In the Pocket features interviews with friends and contemporaries such as former President Bill Clinton, Maya Angelou and Sidney Poitier. This candid profile also includes behind-the-scenes footage of the historic "We Are the World" all-star recording session, in-studio clips of Frank Sinatra and other exclusive visual materials.

Quincy Jones: In the Pocket

10.0 2001