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The Art of Flight

   2011    Culture
Snowboarding as you've never seen it, unless you are one of the handful of daredevils willing to risk life and limb for the glory revealed here. Jaw dropping footage with a pulse-pounding soundtrack, shot in some of the most rugged, remote and beautiful snow country on the planet. "The Art of Flight" gives iconic snowboarder Travis Rice and friends the opportunity to redefine what is possible in the mountains. Experience the highs, as new tricks are landed and new zones opened, alongside the lows, where avalanches, accidents, and wrong-turns strike. Directed by Curt Morgan ad converted by Venture 3D, one of Hollywood's leading 3D conversion companies, the feature combines meaningful storytelling and sport progressing action with some of the most captivating 3D visuals to date. The film was shot using state of the art equipment and technologies, much of which was custom designed for this project. The film transcends snowboarding with an inspirational message about adventure and exploration.

Adoration in the Forest

   2010    Art
Painted over five centuries ago, Filippo Lippi's nativity is like none other: it shows the birth of Christ in a dark, wooded wilderness. There are no shepherds, kings, ox, ass – there is no Joseph. Its beauty inspired Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. But it also conceals a deeply personal story. It was painted for Cosimo de Medici, a wealthy banker who feared that his money was dragging him straight to hell. The artist's life was equally surprising. One of the most celebrated painters of his day, Filippo Lippi was also a Carmelite friar, but he was no stranger to the temptations of the flesh, to which he frequently yielded. Shortly before painting his Adoration, he caused uproar by seducing a twenty year-old nun. His paintings rejoice not only in divine beauty, but in the beauty of women. In later times, the Adoration's history was interwoven with that of rulers and dictators. It became a bargaining chip after Napoleon's allies seized twenty merchant ships. And in the 20th century, it was hidden by the Nazis in a potassium mine, where specialist american officers, known as Monuments Men, stumbled upon it. they were now told to get it ready to be shipped out. In an unprecedented turn of events they refused. This is the only known case in the whole of the Second World War of American officers refusing an order. It was sent to the National Gallery of Art, but in 1949 Lippi's Adoration was returned to Germany.
Series: The Private Life of a Masterpiece

Cape

   2013    Nature
Southern Africa is a riot of life and colour because of two great ocean currents that sweep around the continent's Cape. To the east, the warm Agulhas current generates clouds that roll inland to the wettest place in southern Africa. To the west is the cold Benguela current, home to more great white sharks than anywhere else. Moisture laden fog rolls inland, supporting an incredible desert garden. Where the two currents meet, the clash of warm and cold water creates one of the world's most fabulous natural spectacles - South Africa's sardine run. This is the greatest gathering of predators on the planet, including Africa's largest, the Bryde's whale.
Series: Africa with David Attenborough

The Art of Germany: A Divided Land

   2010    Art
Andrew Graham-Dixon begins his exploration of German art by looking at the rich and often neglected art of the German middle ages and Renaissance. He visits the towering cathedral of Cologne, a place which encapsulates the varied and often contradictory character of German art. In Munch he gets to grips with the earliest paintings of the Northern Renaissance, the woodcuts of Albrecht Durer and the cosmic visions of the painter Albrecht Altdorfer. Andrew also embarks on a tour of the Bavarian countryside, discovering some of the little-known treasures of German limewood sculpture.
Series: The Art of Germany

Falling

   2011    Science
Professor Brian Cox takes on the story of the force that sculpts the entire universe - gravity. Gravity seems so familiar, and yet it is one of the strangest and most surprising forces in the universe. Starting with a zero gravity flight, Brian experiences the feeling of total weightlessness, and considers how much of an effect gravity has had on the world around us. But gravity also acts over much greater distances. It is the great orchestrator of the cosmos. It dictates our orbit around the sun, our relationship with the other planets in our solar system, and even the way in which our solar system orbits our galaxy. Yet the paradox of gravity is that it is actually a relatively weak force. Brian takes a face distorting trip in a centrifuge to explain how it is that gravity achieves its great power, before looking at the role it plays in one of the most extraordinary phenomena in the universe - a neutron star. Although it is just a few kilometres across, it is so dense that its gravity is 100, 000 million times as strong as on Earth. Over the centuries our quest to understand gravity has allowed us to understand some of the true wonders of the universe, and Brian reveals that it is scientists' continuing search for answers that inspires his own sense of wonder.
Series: Wonders of the Universe

The Birth of Rock

   2007    Art
The rock revolution of the 1960s seen through the life and music of Jimi Hendrix. We see how he became the first, ultimately doomed, icon of rock. The Birth Of Rock also explores the influence of rhythm & blues on a generation of British musicians such as The Rolling Stones, Cream and The Who, and how the song-writing of Bob Dylan and studio developments of The Beatles transformed the possibilities and ambitions of rock.
Series: Seven Ages of Rock
The Human Body

The Human Body

1998  Medicine
Cosmos

Cosmos

1980  Science
Strangest Things

Strangest Things

2021  History
Secrets of the Universe

Secrets of the Universe

2021  Science
Shine a Light

Shine a Light

2008  Art