The Hunters

An ethnographic film that documents the efforts of four !Kung men (also known as Ju/'hoansi or Bushmen) to hunt a giraffe in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53. In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.

There Will Be A Movie!

Fajr

In the Moroccan desert night dilutes forms and silence slides through sand. Dawn starts then to draw silhouettes of dunes while motionless figures punctuate landscape. From night´s abstraction, light returns its dimension to space and their volume to bodies. Stillness concentrates gaze and duration densify it. The adhan -muslim call to pray- sounds and immobility, that was condensing, begins to irradiate. And now the bodies are those which dissolves into the desert.

Aleph

Structured as a labyrinth-like game and inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, Aleph is a travelogue of experience, a dreamer's journey through the lives, experiences, stories and musings of protagonists spanning ten countries and five continents.

Out of State

Out of State is the unlikely story of native Hawaiians men discovering their native culture as prisoners in the desert of Arizona, 3,000 miles, and across the ocean, from their island home.

Element of Survival

Beyond the sprawl of the urban jungle, 150 race teams meet to do battle in the heart of the Mojave Desert in southern California. The format is "run what ya brung" Unlimited 4 Wheel Drive Racing, and the stakes are higher than ever. Only 20% of the teams that take the green flag will make it to the end, the remainder being left strewn across the desert floor in the wake of one of the hardest off road races on the planet, the King of the Hammers. Follow teams in 'Element of Survival' as they set out to conquer harsh desert at speeds in excess of 100mph, as well as some of the hardest rock crawling North America has to offer, all in an effort to be crowned "King" at the setting of the sun.

To the Sea

Before leaving for Rome with his mother, five year old Natan is taken by his father, Jorge, on an epic journey to the pristine Chinchorro reef off the coast of Mexico. As they fish, swim, and sail the turquoise waters of the open sea, Natan discovers the beauty of his Mayan heritage and learns to live in harmony with life above and below the surface, as the bond between father and son grows stronger before their inevitable farewell.

Desolation Center

The untold story of a series of Reagan-era guerrilla punk and industrial desert happenings in Southern California that are now recognized as the inspiration for Burning Man, Lollapalooza, and Coachella. Interviews and rare performance footage of Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Redd Kross, Einstürzende Neubauten, Survival Research Laboratories, Savage Republic, Swans and more.

Nostalgia for the Light

In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers peer deep into the cosmos in search for answers concerning the origins of life. Nearby, a group of women sift through the sand searching for body parts of loved ones, dumped unceremoniously by Pinochet's regime.

The American Dreamer

A documentary about actor/director Dennis Hopper, showing him at his home and studio putting together his film "The Last Movie."

30 Years of National Geographic Specials

Celebrates 30 years of televised specials by The National Geographic Society.

Meerkats 3D

Narrated by Oscar-nominated actress Emily Watson, MEERKATS 3D takes audiences on a journey with a family of meerkats as they cope with the twists and turns of life in the Kalahari Desert. The film begins as matriarch Klinky’s most recent litter emerges from the burrow for the first time. Klinky and her family, including elder children and regular babysitters Ms. Bean and Harry, must endure turf wars from rival families, attacks from vicious predators big and small and internal family turmoil. The survival of this clan hinges on the meerkat golden rule: Stick together, and keep calling.

Mojave Mirage

Documentary short about a strange phenomenon where a phone booth that was in the middle of the Mojave Desert began to attract people around the world to call the number and also to travel to the desert to answer the phone.

Spare My Bones, Coyote!

For twelve years, a Mexican American couple have organized biweekly search and rescue missions along the desert border to find and return the bodies of migrants who died while trying to cross on foot to their families. Despite exhaustion, burnout and post-traumatic stress, they continue to bring closure to those who have lost loved ones in the pursuit of a better life.

The Sahara: The Forgotten History of the World's Harshest Desert

At once a vast expanse of mesmerizing desolation and the crucible of human history, the Sahara Desert has been both the battlefield of empires and the haunted wilderness at the margins of the known world for thousands of years. Shot on location, this exhilarating documentary brings to life the Sahara’s cruel history and the conflicts that still plague its people. THE SAHARA recounts the story of kings who once led caravans of 30,000 people across the desert, bearing riches beyond imagination. It tells of Roman death squads that exterminated the citizens of the Empire’s most bitter rival and how the Foreign Legion crafted a legend out of last stands and lost causes. From the fabled metropolis of Timbuktu to the shores of Tripoli, THE SAHARA is an illuminating exploration of this unforgiving and remote land of myth and mirage.

4 mois sur ma biosphère

After traveling the globe to highlight low-tech, Corentin de Chatelperron has set himself a new challenge: to live independently, alone for four months, on a bamboo raft floating in Phang Nga Bay, Thailand. On his 70 square meter platform, the engineer, passionate about ecology and system D, puts into practice what he has learned in order to feed himself and produce his own energy.

Greening the Desert

Permaculture expert Geoff Lawton describes how he and a team of volunteers grew an oasis in arid, salty lowland, despite extremely high temperatures and minimal irrigation. The site is the lowest dryland expanse on Earth: a plain in Jordan, two kilometres northeast of the Dead Sea, and 400 metres below sea level.

The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection and Adaptation

The rock pocket mouse is a living example of Darwin's process of natural selection. Evolution is happening right now everywhere around us, and adaptive changes can occur in a population with remarkable speed. This is essential if you're a mouse living in an environment where a volcanic eruption can reverse selective pressure in nearly an instant. The film features Dr. Michael Nachman, whose work on pocket mice reveals a complete story, from ecosystem to molecules, that demonstrates how random changes in the genome can take many paths to the same adaptation-a colored coat that hides them from predators.

Nazca Desert Mystery

One of the world’s greatest ancient enigmas, the Nazca lines are a dense network of criss-crossing lines, geometric shapes, and animal figures etched across 200 square miles of Peruvian desert. Who created them and why? Ever since they were discovered in the 1920s, scholars and enthusiasts have raised countless theories about their purpose. Now, archaeologists have discovered hundreds of long-hidden lines and figures as well as evidence of ancient rituals, offering new clues to the origins and motivations behind the giant desert symbols.

Cierzo

At the border between Navarre and Aragon we find the moors known as the Bardenas Reales, characterized by the dust and the omnipresence of the northern wind. This is a portrait of a land, but also a journey through Pilar’s memories. It is a glance at the past but also the present, and about how everything has changed, for better or worse.