Charcot: Secret Poles

Comedy icon Joanna Lumley pursues a life-long dream to track down the elusive and beautiful Northern Lights. She travels North across the Arctic Circle, up through Norway and finally to Svalbard, the most northerly permanently inhabited place on Earth, where she has to cope with temperatures approaching minus 30° C. Joanna’s journey takes her from train to boat and huskysled to snowmobile as she is pulled ever northwards and finally, in a breathtaking climax to the film, Joanna gets to see with her own eyes the spectacular beauty of the Northern Lights. As seen on ABC1.

Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life. So when he's offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. After they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave, and Jack realizes that he is not alone.

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Through dramatic reconstruction and documentary asides, the spirit of Italian poet, playwright, journalist, aristocrat and army officer Gabriele D’Annunzio is captured, presenting the nascent fascism in his attempts to forge a new state in the aftermath of the First World War.

In a Belgian village during the start of World War I, the Lambert family finds themselves thrust into the heart of the conflict in The Last Front. Leonard Lambert, a devoted husband and father, grapples with protecting his family as German forces advance to their village. Amidst the war, a tender love story blossoms between Adrien Lambert, Leonard's son, and Louise Janssen, a local villager.

Every year, tens of thousands don the Red Suit for families, parties and parades, but only a handful of men have reclaimed the connection to childhood magic by turning the portrayal of Santa into a full-time career. They Wore the Red Suit is a documentary featuring the rare individuals who have devoted their lives to keeping that magic alive in the world by actually being Santa Claus 365 days a year.

The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.

Tímamót, or Changes in English. An upbeat, heartwarming story about Gudjon, Sigurbjorn and Steinthor who lived together for decades along with several other inhabitants in the Tjaldanes Institution, in a peaceful valley close to Reykjavik. When a decision is made to close down the institution, their life takes an unexpected turn and they discover a new side to life and to themselves.

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

During World War I, English officer Thomas Edward 'T.E.' Lawrence sets out to unite and lead the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes to fight the Turks.

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

A young filmmaker is commissioned to write a documentary about the First World War. He tries to find a way to tell the story of the war. What is to be done with all these films waiting in the archives to be shown again? He tries his hand at different styles of writing and editing, keeping in mind the question: can you make a montage film without transforming the images?

The events in Sarajevo in June 1914 are the backdrop for a thriller directed by Andreas Prochaska and written by Martin Ambrosch, focusing on the examining magistrate Dr. Leo Pfeffer (Florian Teichtmeister) investigating the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Trying to do his job in a time of lawlessness and violence, intrigues and betrayal, Leo struggles to maintain his integrity and save his love, Marija, and her father, prominent Serbian merchant. But the events of Sarajevo have set into motion an inescapable course of events that will escalate to become … the Great War.

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Iranian Iradj Azimi directed this French historical drama re-creating events depicted in the famous 1819 painting The Raft of the Medusa by Jean Louis Andre Theodore Gericault (1791-1824). The ill-fated voyage of the frigate Medusa begins when it departs Rochefort for Senegal in 1816. After striking a sandbar off the African coast, 150 civilians row safely to shore, but Captain Chaumareys (Jean Yanne) orders 140 soldiers and sailors onto a raft (minus supplies) and has it cut loose. Only 14 survive from the 140, creating a scandal back in France. Gericault (Laurent Terzieff) later talks to three of the survivors while researching his painting. Work on this film began in 1987, but sets destroyed by Hurricane Hugo caused delays, so the film was not completed until 1990. However, it then remained undistributed until an incident in which writer-director Azimi slashed his wrists in front of French Ministry of Culture officials.

Kluane National Park is situated in the Yukon area of northern Canada and is a research paradise for glaciologists, geologists and other scientists. Mountaineers come to scale the impressive heights. Animals are free to roam, protected by stringent legislation. This film reveals many facets of this beautiful park, which has been declared a protected zone by UNESCO.

This short documentary offers a look at the life forms on the Queen Elizabeth Islands within the Arctic Circle. Even in this frigid zone of icebergs and glaciers a surprising variety of wildlife and vegetation is seen. Writings from the logbooks of early explorers provide vivid descriptions of scenes as arresting to them in their century as to today's explorer. Note: Originally produced for the television series Perspective, this film was distributed separately on 16mm for schools and libraries, qualifying it as a standalone documentary.

The little known story of one of the worst non-combat disasters in the history of the US Navy, …AS IF THEY WERE ANGELS is a story of courage, heart, sacrifice and the heroism of miners & fishermen of 2 small towns, who risked their lives to save nearly 200 American sailors, shipwrecked on the rugged cliffs of Newfoundland. Narrated by Peter Coyote, it’s a deeply layered tale of navigation errors, courts martial mistakes, a steep loss of life, and resonates today as if the very telling of its deep humanity offers a lifeline for our fractured times.

Hosted by actor and historian Sir Tony Robinson, this one-off special tells the powerful and moving story of five men, all members of a unique volunteer army – the Sheffield City battalion – as it recounts the soldiers’ last days, leaving their homes and loved ones to go and serve alongside their friends and neighbours, completely unaware of what lay ahead of them. Central to the programme is the story of Private Frank Meakin, who recorded his unique personal testimony of the war. Frank and his friends could never have anticipated what they would experience, but 100 years on we know in detail, thanks to his diary – an account that shouldn’t have existed, because keeping one was forbidden for servicemen on active duty on the Western Front. Frank’s diary, which was smuggled back from the Front, reveals the intimate details and dramatic stories of one battalion – and one British city – in the words of one man.

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