Turtle: The Incredible Journey

The story of a little loggerhead turtle, as she follows in the path of her ancestors on one of the most extraordinary journeys in the natural world. Born on a beach in Florida, she rides the Gulf Stream up towards the Arctic and ultimately swims around the entire North Atlantic across to Africa and back to the beach where she was born. But the odds are stacked against her; just one in ten thousand turtles survive the journey.

2009-10-01 | en

Saving Pelican 895

HBO Documentary Films Presents the story of the effort to save the 895th surviving oiled pelican in Louisiana, showing how conservationists, government agencies and wildlife activists joined forces to preserve this one life.

2011-04-01 | en

Cousteau: Alaska: Outrage at Valdez

On March 24, 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in the pristine waters of Alaska's Prince William Sound, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil. Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of Jacques Cousteau, takes us on a voyage to investigate first-hand the devastating impact of the U.S.'s largest oil spill. Amid the majestic mountains and ice floes of this serene setting, the leaking oil spreads like a virus staining and often killing everything it encounters. Harbor seals, sea otters, and bald eagles fall victim to the tragic accident.

1990-03-25 | en

Oil Spill of The Century

In 1978, the Amoco Cadiz, a supertanker loaded with 220,000 tons of petrol, ran aground in Brittany, France. The accident caused the biggest oil spill France has ever known and is still today known as one of the 20th century’s biggest ecological catastrophes. Forty years later, Loïck Peyron tries to understand how nature recovered from the disaster and what lessons were learned from it.

2018-03-16 | fr

The Last Camp

On December 15, 2024, the collision and sinking of two fuel oil tankers in the Kerch Strait caused one of the most devastating environmental disasters in the history of the Black Sea. Six months later, the tankers lying on the seabed are still leaking fuel oil, and of the thousands of volunteers who initially took part in the cleanup, only a few dozen remain along a 30-kilometer stretch of beach. The film was shot on the Taman Peninsula in early summer 2025, against the backdrop of a formally lifted, yet in reality already underway, beach season. In the face of scarce resources, the departure of their own leaders, and the daily release of fuel oil, the volunteers talk about themselves, rescue animals, combat the ignorance of those around them, and try to find the motivation to continue their fight against a disaster that at times seems endless.

2025-08-13 | ru

Taking Back Our Beach

This is a film about the response by a community to New Zealand’s largest environmental disaster, seen through the eyes of that community. The film captures the shock, anger and grief driven into the heart of the local community, but also the humour, purpose and overwhelming positivity when people join together with a common goal.

2023-10-05 | en

Vergessene Wracks

There are ticking time bombs off the coasts of the world, of which the public has hardly been aware: 6,300 wrecks, sunk during the Second World War, have been rusting in the sea for more than 70 years. Researchers estimate the amount of oil remaining in them at up to 15 million tons. What can be done to prevent an oil slick?

2017-05-26 | de

L’or du golfe

2015-04-17 | fr

Nordeste Água e Óleo

2025-04-29 | pt

Tóxico, Texaco, Tóxico

The imagination of history in Ecuador never thought that oil, “its redeeming hope”, discovered in the Lago Agrio No. 1 well, was going to mean the beginning of the worst environmental catastrophe on the planet. Thirty years of operation and exploitation of the Texaco company, forever transformed the rivers and estuaries, the forests and the life of the indigenous communities in the northern Amazon of Ecuador.

2007-11-25 | es

Deepwater Horizon

A story set on the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which exploded during April 2010 and created the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

2016-09-28 | en

Central Airport

Aviator Jim Blaine and his brother Neil are rivals not only as daredevil flyers, but also for the love of parachutist Jill Collins.

1933-04-15 | en

Louisiana Story

The idyllic life of a young Cajun boy and his pet raccoon is disrupted when the tranquility of the bayou is broken by an oil well drilling near his home.

1948-09-28 | en

I'm Charlie Walker

1971 post civil rights San Francisco seemed like the perfect place for a black Korean War veteran and his family to realize their dream of economic independence, and a chance for him to be his own boss. Charlie Walker would soon find out how naive he was. In a city full of impostors and naysayers, he refused to take "No" for an answer. That is, until a catastrophic disaster opened a door that had never been open to a black man before. This is a story about what happened when he stepped through that door with both feet.

2022-06-10 | en

Urtajo

A toxic spill threatens the town of Urtajo: tackle the problem or cover it up? Javier will learn that not everything can be bought with money.

2025-03-15 | es

Trip to Asia: The Quest for Harmony

Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.

2008-02-28 | de

Rubens: A Life in Europe

The Flemish painter, humanist and diplomat Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was fortunate to be recognized during his lifetime as an artist of genius and one of the most prolific among his peers, making him a key figure of the Baroque.

2018-02-18 | de

Mein Nachbar ist Nazi - Was tun?

How do you deal with right-wing extremists in the neighborhood? Exclude, tolerate or involve? Rural regions in particular are prone to infiltration by nationalist settlers. Right-wing extremists systematically penetrate village structures, pretending to be nice neighbors, committed citizens and problem solvers in a completely non-ideological way. Local volunteer fire brigades and football clubs are infiltrated by Nazis. Done among others in the village of Groß Krams in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where two right-wing extremists seem to be part of everyday village life. One of them works as a firefighter. In Appen, Schleswig-Holstein, the state chairman of the Hamburg NPD wanted to join the village's football club. But the club's management refused when they found out about the political background. The documentary by Hans Jakob Rausch illuminates the infiltration strategies of the extreme right and the difficult balance between tolerance and engagement against right-wing radicalism.

2021-03-01 | de

Madagascar: Africa's Galapagos

This film reveals some of Madagascar's secretive and rarely filmed inhabitants, from the apex predator, the fossa, to the aye aye – possibly the weirdest creature on earth.

2019-08-01 | en

Grisha

An up-close look into the life of the often misunderstood movie director Grigori Kromanov through the lens of old friends and colleagues.

1996-11-08 | et