July 20, 1969. Apollo 11 lands on the surface of the Moon. Such a feat was apparently performed to the greater glory of all mankind, but actually it marked the end of the space race disputed by the two great superpowers of the time in their eagerness to arrive before and the beginning of the spread of the Cold War into space. Nowadays, the struggle continues, but the main competitors and their purposes are others.
In the 19th century, China held the monopoly on tea, which was dear and fashionable in the West, and the British Empire exchanged poppies, produced in its Indian colonies and transformed into opium, for Chinese tea. Inundated by the drugs, China was forced to open up its market, and the British consolidated their commercial dominance. In 1839, the Middle Empire introduced prohibition. The Opium War was declared… Great Britain emerged as the winner, but the warning was heeded: it could no longer depend on Chinese tea. The only alternative possible was to produce its own tea. The East India Company therefore entrusted one man with finding the secrets of the precious beverage. His mission was to develop the first plantations in Britain’s Indian colonies. This latter-day James Bond was called Robert Fortune – a botanist. After overcoming innumerable ordeals in the heart of imperial China, he brought back the plants and techniques that gave rise to Darjeeling tea.
In an audacious investigation, Freightened will reveal the mechanics and perils of freight shipment; an all-but-visible industry that holds the key to our economy, our environment and the very model of our civilisation.
Is sand an infinite resource? Can the existing supply satisfy a gigantic demand fueled by construction booms? What are the consequences of intensive beach sand mining for the environment and the neighboring populations?
China's FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope) can detect radio signals emitted tens of thousands of light-years away, and engineers have faced unprecedented challenges in constructing a giant radio receptor nestled amid mountains. From novel technological innovations to architectural challenges, we follow every step that gave birth to the biggest radio telescope ever constructed.
At the heart of the South-East Asia, there are impenetrable forests. Outstanding Men kept it an ancestral know-how: the taming of the elephants. We call them Bunong – the original people of mountains. For centuries, Bunong considers the elephants as their brothers of the forest. Together, they worked miracles. Majestic quoted from Angkor was built thanks to the ingenuity of the men, allied to the physical strength of their elephants. They live in harmony in this world of forests where a brilliant multitude reigns over the fate of the men and the animals.
One ordinary citizen keeps his family out of poverty by cleaning up bloody crime scenes across Mexico City. This innovative feature, mixing documentary, surreal animations and a Mariachi chorus centres around Donovan Tavera and his struggle to continue his bloody work whilst keeping not only his wife and daughter together but also his mind. The film brings many of the haunting dead clients of Donovan back to cinematic life and thus denounces the terrible violence raging in Mexico. It thereby reveals the extraordinary balancing act between life and death needed to survive in modern Mexico.
