From the earliest voyages that mapped the Earth to today’s launches into space, The Discoverers reverberates with the passion to explore our universe. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Dr. Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers examines our desire to expand the boundaries of knowledge. The stories presented in this film span space and time, taking us around the world to participate in the act of discovery. Stand alongside Sir Isaac Newton in his British lab; then travel to the present to observe Dr. Louis Herman working with his very cerebral dolphins in Hawaii.
Marvel at the awesome power of nature as The Eruption of Mount St. Helens displays the change evoked by a massive volcanic eruption and the renewal process which follows it. In this Academy Award nominated film, beautiful photography of the mountain prior to May 18th, 1980, is harshly contrasted with the apocalyptic post-eruption scenery created when the entire side of Mount St. Helens was blown away in billowing clouds of ash. Soar over and through the unearthly landscape of mud, ash and steaming craters in a ride that shows just what it is like to have an exploding volcano in your backyard.
The film tells the story of Ying Zheng, ruler of Qin, who conquered neighboring states and declared himself “Qin Shihuang,” First Emperor of China. Qin’s battles, achievements, and tyranny are recounted with a cast of thousands in epic style, with historically accurate costumes and meticulous attention to detail.
The story of the Settlement of the United States’ western frontier is told using the stories and words (from diaries and letters) of real life people while showing this astonishingly beautiful territory. The film chronicles the major events that contributed to the settlement of the western frontier beginning with the Louisiana purchase and ending when in 1890 the U.S. Census Bureau declared that there was no more frontier; it had been settled.
Fly across iridescent tropical reefs, brush through a cloud of a million jellyfish, visit an alien world where the closer you look, the more you see.
We think of reefs as exotic, distant places with little connection to our everyday world. Yet there are many kinds of reef, each of them a living city beneath the sea, where plants and animals congregate in mutual benefit. They have a parallel existence to ours, distant yet undoubtedly connected.
Each of them is a hotspot of biodiversity as vital to life on earth as the rainforests. Just as the Amazon has its secrets, so too do the reefs. Reefs have been molding and shaping our shorelines, literally forming islands and mountains, for millions of years. Yet in our lifetime, they have come under threat: human activity is altering the chemistry of the oceans. As the sea becomes more acidic, coral, shell and bone begin to crumble.
Shot on location in Palau, Vancouver Island, French Polynesia, Mexico, and The Bahamas, The Last Reef takes us on a global journey to explore our connection with the ocean’s complex, parallel worlds. New underwater 3D technology takes us into the heart of the reef, revealing a habitat more diverse and more colorful than you ever imagined …
What would it mean to us if one of these vibrant wonderlands were to become the last reef?
The Living Sea celebrates the beauty and power of the ocean as it explores our relationship with this complex and fragile environment. Using beautiful images of unspoiled healthy waters, The Living Sea offers hope for recovery engendered by productive scientific efforts.
Oceanographers studying humpback whales, jellyfish, and deep-sea life show us that the more we understand the ocean and its inhabitants, the more we will know how to protect them. The film also highlights the Central Pacific islands of Palau, one of the most spectacular underwater habitats in the world to show the beauty and potential of a healthy ocean.
The Living Sea is narrated by Meryl Streep and features songs and music by Sting.
Journey from the depths of the Pacific Ocean into the far reaches of space on a quest to find something that changes everything — signs of life, somewhere else in the universe.
With stunning imagery from the world’s most powerful telescopes, this new giant screen film takes audiences from the surface of Mars and the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn, to the extreme lava fields of Hawaii and the thermal vents deep beneath the sea. In these harsh environments, astrobiologists look for clues to how life takes hold. As this immersive adventure into the universe reveals the possibility of life on planets like our own, The Search for Life in Space will make you re-examine such fundamental questions as: “Are we alone?”
The Search for Life in Space is a December Media film produced in association with Film Victoria Australia and Swinburne University of Technology. The film is distributed by MacGillivray Freeman Films.
The Trolley propels giant screen audiences through the great cities of the globe to tell the story of one of civilization’s most remarkable inventions. Step aboard the talented electric trolley for a ride across the eras and through thirty-nine cities and sixteen countries …
Perfected in the 19th century workshop of American inventor Frank Sprague, the first functional electric trolley was embraced as a miracle of the electric age—a device that could rid streets of suffocating piles of horse manure and flies and even re-invent civilization. And it did.
The electric streetcar, tram or trolley was a ride that changed everything. Across a century-and-a-half, trolleys carried billions of people to work and play and home again. Gifted with extreme efficiency and an egalitarian outlook, the device helped revitalize and re-build the urban landscape.
Created expressly for giant IMAX® screens The Trolley propels audiences on a kinetic, electrifying and music-charged journey through great cities across the globe, revealing the trolley’s own roller coaster ride: from humble birth to explosive, world-transforming success, to near obliteration in the automobile age, to its technological renaissance in the 21st century. From the trolley’s kinetic vantage, we witness a century and-a-half of explosive change and discover the hidden magic of the trolley itself.
Featuring eleven-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater, The Ultimate Wave Tahiti follows a quest to find the perfect wave-riding experience. The film’s action focuses on Tahiti and the volcanic islands of French Polynesia, home to some of the world’s most challenging surfing and to astounding coral reef ecosystems at the turbulent interface between island and ocean. The islands are also a homeland of traditional Polynesian seafaring culture and the art of surfing.
With their host, Tahitian surfer Raimana Van Bastolear, Kelly Slater and a group of friends seek out the best waves breaking on the reef at Tahiti’s famed surf site Teahupoo. Kelly and Raimana share a passion for the waves, but different ideas about what surfing means to them: is it a modern competitive sport or an ancient Polynesian wave-riding art? As the surf quest unfolds, the film explores the hidden forces at work shaping the waves and the islands that lie in their path. The great waves arrive and surfing play becomes surfing survival as the riders tackle some of the biggest, heaviest surf on the planet.
Titans of the Ice Age transports viewers to the beautiful and otherwordly frozen landscapes of North America, Europe, and Asia ten thousand years before modern civilization. Peer through the giant 3D canvas to an ancient world of ice, the dawn of our species, a time when humans shared the tundra with majestic woolly beasts.
Join Storm Chasers star Sean Casey and the researchers of VORTEX 2, the most ambitious effort ever made to understand the origins and evolution of tornadoes on this heart-pounding science adventure. Armed with a 70mm camera, a fleet of customized vehicles designed to withstand gale force winds, torrential rains and unrelenting hail, and an arsenal of the most advanced weather measurement instruments ever created, the stars of Tornado Alley take audiences on a thrilling quest to experience a tornado’s destructive power at point blank range. Experience the adrenaline and the science of nature’s most dramatic phenomena!
Sea turtles are some of Earth’s most ancient and majestic creatures. For over 100 million years, they have traversed the seas, enduring mass extinctions and playing critical roles in maintaining food webs. But now they face a new threat – humans. It’s time we learned more about these remarkable reptiles. Academy Award winner and turtle conservation champion Russell Crowe narrates the captivating tale of Bunji, a green sea turtle. From the moment her fragile egg cracks below the warm sands of an Australian beach, we join Bunji as she travels through the Great Barrier Reef and thousands of miles into open ocean. After decades, she will migrate with mysterious precision back to the very same beach where she was born and lay the eggs that are the foundation for the next generation. With Bunji as our guide, we will meet an astonishing range of strange and compelling creatures and witness some really wild encounters. All have been filmed in stunning 3D, so you will feel truly immersed amongst massive manta rays, breaching whales, and vibrant clownfish. Sea turtles remind us just how interconnected we all are, and audiences will be moved to cherish these beautiful and vulnerable animals even more.
A boy who dreams of flying grows up to make those dreams real, and tries to impress his childhood sweetheart by competing with a rival in an breathtaking aerial dogfight shot in the Grand Canyon. Pilots from the Air Combat Canada airshow team, and the world aerobatic champion enabled the filming of amazing aerial sequences.
Van Gogh leads viewers on a journey through the surprisingly short 9-year period of the artist’s career during which he painted more than 900 paintings. Told from the perspectives of three main characters — Ellen, a museum researcher, Peter, a film director, and Vincent van Gogh himself — Van Gogh follows in the artist’s footsteps, traveling from the Netherlands to Auvers-sur-Oise and passing through Arles, Saint-Rémy, and Paris. From the dazzling yellow of the artist’s famous cornfields to the deep blue of his famous night sky, audiences will rediscover the source of some of the most important works in art history.