Ushuaïa TV

Man has always sought to seek further afield. After the seafaring explorers of the 16th century, 21st century cosmologists today navigate more celestial oceans, with each mission providing an ever-broader and more impressive cartography of our surroundings. At the avant garde of modern technology, these strange travellers are actually immobile, and their vessels are powerful and spectacular telescopes, on the Earth or in space, constantly widening the limits of our knowledge and giving form to our dreams of infinity. From Hawaii to Australia, via South Africa and China, we set out on an incredible scientific and human adventure to visit the planet's greatest cosmic exploration centres to discover the new challenges involved in understanding the universe. A journey on Earth and in the heavens that will take your breath away!

For more than a decade, wildfires of unprecedented force have been devouring our lives, homes and forests at a steady pace. Each year, 350 million hectares of forest go up in smoke, the equivalent of six times the size of France. In the US, the fire season now lasts up to two months longer than a generation ago, and the surface burnt annually has multiplied by three. This film sets out on a gripping journey of investigation from Europe to the US, Canada, Brazil and Indonesia to follow the work of a global team of dedicated firefighters, scientists and fire experts as they investigate why our forests are going up in flames, and act on an unexpected discovery: if we want to save our forests, homes, health and our climate, we need to radically change our attitude towards fire and the way we fight wildfires.

Every year in Tanzania, the dry season hits the Ruaha reserve hard. To survive, animal populations come down from the high plateaus to reach the Ruaha river, where a troupe of lionesses waits patiently, poised for combat

For the animal and plant world that lives there, the Kalahari is a region as grandiose as it is unforgiving. For a long time it was thought that only the law of the strongest could survive here. But a completely different strategy is needed: cooperation.

This investigation by Marie-Monique Robin makes the link between the proliferation of new viruses and the destruction of biodiversity and probes the scientists gathered around the issue of global health. To counter the multiplication of health crises, these specialists advocate the preservation of biodiversity as an antidote.

In the heart of southern France there is a fog-prone area where, according to legend, a bloodthirsty creature wreaked havoc 250 years ago. A rumor is spreading again in this legendary place, as eyewitnesses report an animal with large paws and a long tail that crosses roads in a single leap - powerful enough to tear down a horse and leave it mutilated in the pasture. Is the Beast of Gévaudan back? The animal photographer Bruno Loisel has a supposedly more rational explanation. The animal that fits the descriptions could be a cougar, but this species of big cat is only native to America. In order to learn the proper techniques for tracking down the puma, he travels to Canada, where he accompanies a team of researchers dedicated to studying the shy, almost invisible predator. Will Bruno be able to use his findings to solve the mystery of the new beast of Gévaudan?

Does Europe also have its own animistic heritage, like Pachamama in South America and Shinto in Japan? If so, which one? In the Misty Lands, i.e. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, a sacred fire is lit on the winter solstice to celebrate the return of the sun and ancient beliefs that have been forgotten in the rest of Europe for thousands of years. Sophie Planque and Jérémy Vaugeois decided to take a journey on bicycles to experience the Baltic winter and meet the people who keep their ancestral culture alive. A unique heritage that reinforces a deep relationship with nature.

French actress Marion Cotillard travelled to the Philippines to meet with children and young people on climate change and what they want big-polluting governments to do about it. One of the girls she met is Marinel, a survivor of the Super Typhoon disaster in the Philippines in 2013, who is taking action on climate change in her own community. She participates in Plan International’s climate change adaptation projects and now teaches at youth camps to pass on everything she has learnt to the younger children. Marinel travelled to Paris with Plan International for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in December 2015.

Rather than learning France's history through its people, we explore its natural history. A two billion-year journey back in time to look at the country's geological heritage: a mountain chain becomes Brittany, lagoons where Paris now stands, ice from the Aiguille du Midi maps the routes of rivers flowing seawards.

French author Sylvain Tesson pays tribute to the heroes of the Russian Revolution as he crosses the Pamir mountain range in Tajikistan, which boasts a multitude of peaks at more than 7,000m. They will have the occasion to look back on some of the major figures and events of the Revolution. Lenin Peak, Revolution Peak, Karl Marx Peak, and also the October Glacier and the Soviet Officer range – all names which evoke the Revolution in these remarkable yet little-known locations. He is accompanied by two friends, author and lover of all things Russian, Cédric Gras, and the former Soviet mountaineering instructor, Nicolay Taran. Along the way, the author and his traveling companions observe the traces left by the former USSR on daily life here, and they listen to the memories of the populations who live in the Pamirs, whether Kyrgyz nomads on the high plateaus or Ismailis in the valleys. For Sylvain Tesson, the journey will serve as a source of inspiration for his future writing.

At only 26 years old, the adventurer Matthieu Tordeur undertook an expedition of 1150 km by skiing from the coast of the Antarctic continent to the South Pole, alone, without assistance and in total autonomy. This immersive documentary plunges us into the intimacy of the 51 days of this exceptional and very moving expedition.

It can’t be denied that our planet is burning and the NGOs seem overwhelmed by the number of catastrophic situations to be managed... As soon as one fire goes out, another one is lit on the other side of the world. While Greenpeace had obtained a moratorium on deforestation in the Amazon, Bolsonaro’s coming to power was enough to undo the long and patient work of the NGO. Now activists of a new kind are planning to file a complaint against the Brazilian dictator, in the name of nature. It is advocates and lawyers taking over; white-collar rangers whose clients are rivers, forests and wildlife. They militate for nature to be recognised as a legal entity, in order to file a complaint on its behalf and represent them in court. Indeed, they look for all the loopholes in the laws and attack the enemies of nature on their own ground.