
Mara, el viaje de la elefanta (2020)
An elephant born in captivity seeks to achieve something resembling freedom.
An elephant born in captivity seeks to achieve something resembling freedom.
Drawing upon a vast and richly visual archive and featuring a host of performers, historians and aficionados, this four-hour mini-series follows the rise and fall of the gigantic, traveling tented railroad circus and brings to life an era when Circus Day would shut down a town and its stars were among the most famous people in the country.
Ashes and Snow, a film by Gregory Colbert, uses both still and movie cameras to explore extraordinary interactions between humans and animals. The 60-minute feature is a poetic narrative rather than a documentary. It aims to lift the natural and artificial barriers between humans and other species, dissolving the distance that exists between them.
Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.
The film tells of the beginnings of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. At the end of the 1950s, the Tanzanian National Park Administration wanted to fence in the protected area around the Ngorongoro Crater. Bernhard and Michael Grzimek were invited by the national park administration in 1957 to get a precise picture of the animal migrations and to provide the national park administration with the values they needed for their project. Using a new counting method with two airplanes, the Grzimeks found out that the migration of the herds was different than assumed.
Sangduen Chailert, or Lek, as she is generally known, has already rescued over 200 elephants. She has dedicated her life to saving the Asian elephant and founded a special camp, The Elephant Nature Park to protect them. We follow this winner of Time Magazine’s “Asian Hero of the Year” Award in her work. Lek is on a mission to save the Asian elephant in her native Thailand. This film looks at the plight of the Asian elephant, as it goes from being a widely used domestic animal, to becoming a burden on modernizing communities. With experts predicting its extinction within four decades, Lek’s work is needed now more than ever and she has gathered a large group of supporters and volunteers in her quest for a better future for the Asian elephant. This moving film demonstrates Lek’s natural understanding of and rapport with these huge animals and will stir the viewers emotions as it highlights the often desperate state some elephants are kept in.
Short dramatised documentary showing the ups and downs of daily life on a circus farm. “The only light comes from the flames of the funeral pyre that consumes a dead circus elephant shortly after its corpse has been unceremoniously dragged across a field by 50 carthorses.” (BFI)
Disneynature’s Elephant follows African elephant Shani and her spirited son Jomo as their herd make an epic journey hundreds of miles across the vast Kalahari Desert. Led by their great matriarch, Gaia, the family faces brutal heat, dwindling resources and persistent predators, as they follow in their ancestors’ footsteps on a quest to reach a lush, green paradise.
On the northern bank of the Sand River in the Mala-Mala Game Reserve in South Africa, seven magnificent creatures reside in an area the size of Manhattan Island. Tracking them for 24 hours reveals a never-ending daily drama.
David Attenborough investigates the remarkable life and death of Jumbo the elephant - a celebrity animal superstar whose story is said to have inspired the movie Dumbo. Attenborough joins a team of scientists and conservationists to unravel the complex and mysterious story of this large African elephant - an elephant many believed to be the biggest in the world. With unique access to Jumbo's skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History, the team work together to separate myth from reality. How big was Jumbo really? How was he treated in captivity? And how did he die? Jumbo's bones may offer vital clues.
Follow filmmakers as they capture the epic journey of African elephants across the Kalahari desert. The team faces extreme weather, inaccessible terrain, crocodile-infested waters and close encounters with lions in order to shine a light on these remarkable creatures and their ancient migrations.
Born to Be Wild observes various orphaned jungle animals and their day-to-day behavioural interactions with the individuals who rescue them and raise them to adulthood. The film unfurls in two separate geographic spheres. Half of it takes place in the rain forests of Borneo, where celebrated primatologist Dr. Birute Galdikas assists baby orangutans; the other half takes place on the arid savannahs of Kenya, where zoologist Dame Daphne Sheldrick works with baby elephant calves.
Elephants On The Move goes behind the scenes at Twycross Zoo as the herd of elephants which has been attracting crowds for 50 years, are set for a big change - a new home. Elephant Creek in Twycross Zoo has been a public favourite for generations, but it's time for its inhabitants to move house - nearly 150 miles away to the seaside - to Blackpool Zoo. Mike Dilger follows Minbu, Tara, Noorjahan and Esha, a family of four female Asian elephants, as they embark on their epic journey to relocate to Blackpool as part of a European breeding programme. However, persuading a family of elephants to get into a giant transportation crate for a three-hour drive north is not that simple. It’s one of the biggest challenges the team of zoo keepers has ever had to face. As part of their daily routines the elephants are being trained to get into the crates with treats and rewards after every milestone reached. It’s going to be a long process!
National Geographic filmmakers, Dereck and Beverly Joubert, explore how some animals are thrust together by the forces of nature-sometimes through a millennium of evolution or even last year’s drought. In the aftermath of strange elephant deaths, they piece together a visually stunning story that confirms their theory that lions were hunting elephants. Narrated by Jeremy Irons.
There are fewer than 20 tuskers left on earth, where ivory still sweeps the ground. Filmed throughout the Greater Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya, Kimana Tuskers is a short film of epic proportions. Follow the famous tusker known as Craig, and the younger elephant bulls who entrust their lives to him as they navigate a vanishing landscape through the Kimana Wildlife Corridor. This is the passage of experience, a brotherhood, built on respect, trust and loyalty, and what awaits them is the promised land, so that one day their sons will rise to be kings…
Using 4-D technology, the early stages of a Golden Retriever puppy, a dolphin, and an elephant are examined.
In this three part documentary we look at all topics South Africa has to offer. THE BIG FIVE focuses on the kings of animals, lion, rhinoceros, elephant, leopard and the African buffalo. Armed with 3D cameras, we visited the Kings of the savannah and the jungle, where we sensed the fascination that emanates from the largest animals in the wild. In SAFARI we look behind the scenes of a park and found out what it means to pursue eco-tourism and just what the opportunities and the risks are. Finally, we discover the WEST CAPE region and its unique flora and fauna, swim with whales and sea lions, follow penguins and – as a highlight – we meet the white sharks. Join us on a spectacular 3D journey.
Ashley Bell and a team of elephant rescuers led by world renowned Asian elephant conservationist Lek Chailert, embark on a daring 48-hour mission across Thailand to rescue a 70-year old captive blind Asian elephant and bring her to freedom.
In Africa, poachers brutally maim and kill elephants for their ivory, much of which is exported to China or smuggled into the United States. The profits help fund terrorist organisations, and are used to buy guns and artillery. WILD DAZE takes an unflinching look at these problems from various perspectives, and shows how the slaughter has decimated the elephant population, left survivors traumatised, and seriously harmed the forests of Eastern and Southern Africa.
Join Athena, the majestic matriarch, as she leads her elephant herd across an unforgiving African landscape.
"The World's Loneliest Elephant" Kaavan will finally experience freedom, thanks to his biggest champion, the one & only Cher. We'll follow Cher, Free The Wild, Four Paws International, and Kaavan on every step of the trip.