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The History of the Red Army

   2022    History
The fascinating history of the military force of the Soviet Union. For 70 years, the Red Army was one of the foundations of the USSR, an instrument of fear as well as admiration, a symbol of liberation as well as coercion. While everyone knows that Trotsky's name is attached to its creation, most of its past is made up of military defeats and failures, contrary to the common idea. This documentary explores its history, combining epic narrative and deconstruction of the myth.

The Genius of Leonardo da Vinci

   2018    History
Dr Janina Ramirez embarks on a journey through six decades of the BBC archives to create a television history of one of the most celebrated figures in art - Leonardo Da Vinci. Ramirez shows how experts and art presenters have turned to television to bring Leonardo's artwork out of galleries and into our living rooms. Through television they have explored the origins of Leonardo's boundless curiosity, his pioneering use of light and shade, and his remarkable scientific exploration.
Along the way Dr Ramirez discovers Britain's little-known version of The Last Supper, the gruesome ways Leonardo acquired his anatomical knowledge - and even what lies beneath the Mona Lisa.

Magellan Crossing

   2021    History
Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastian Elcano set sail to gain control of the global spice trade, but end up becoming the first expedition to circumnavigate the earth. The yearslong voyage—along with the suffering, the violence and the loss of life and property—were all in pursuit of a shorter route to the so-called Spice Islands (now the Maluku Islands) and their much-coveted aromatics.
The film puts in perspective the 16th century—the Age of Exploration, the Age of Discovery and the Age, problematically, of Colonialism. It also was an age of heroes. As the documentary insists, the journeys undertaken by the men whose names we learned in grade school and whose exploits straddled the 1400s and 1500s—including Ponce de Leon, Vasco da Gama, Lope de Aguirre and even Columbus—were about money, sometimes trade, sometimes plunder. But just as advances in medicine have often been propelled by war, knowledge about the world has been a byproduct of profit-seeking. Likewise, heroism.

Big Cats

   2021    Nature
This immersive series follows the world's most magnificent creatures, capturing never before seen moments from the heartwarming to the outrageous.
In the first episode, majestic, powerful and deadly, big cats were once thought to be solitary creatures. But we're now realizing just how collaborative they can be.
Series: Animal

Luangwa: The Emerald Valley

   2021    Nature
At the very end of East Africa's Great Rift Valley, there's a 'land that time forgot'--the rolling grasslands of the Luangwa Valley. Seemingly untouched plains teem with Africa's most iconic animals. Some are unique to this place, others are critically endangered elsewhere.
Here, prey exist in remarkable balance, each taking advantage of the secret at the heart of this Eden, the mighty Luangwa River and its dramatic annual transformation from dusty inferno to emerald paradise.
Series: Eden: Untamed Planet

The Secret Nuremberg Notebooks

       History
We are familiar with images of the hearings at the Nuremberg trials. But to this day, no one has taken us into the cells and minds of the accused. Leon Goldensohn, a 34-year-old American Jewish psychiatrist, spent six months visiting the 4 main Nazi war criminals.
Based on these unique and recently uncovered documents and reconstitutions of the main events, this film discloses for the first time the personal thoughts of the Nazis: Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Hans Franck and Julius Streicher. These interviews raise serious questions concerning the psychic mechanisms and mysteries that set off acts of barbarity.