In May 2014 three men were sent into space for a period of six months: the American astronaut Reid Wiseman, German Alexander Gerst and Russian Maxim Surayev. For Wiseman and Barley, it was their first space trip. They take you on a breathtaking adventure. The film follows them during their last months of training in different locations - the NASA center in Houston, Star City near Moscow and the European Centre in Cologne - and ultimately, the launch from Kazakhstan in May 2014. During their six-month stay, the astronauts also shoot footage, giving the viewer an overall picture of what it means to be an astronaut. Zero Gravity is a unique experience full of inside information, fascinating images of space as well as a beautiful story about friendship and devotion.

Zero Gravity: Mission in Space

For 70 years, the population of the wapiti deer in the Yellowstone National Park in the United States increased unchecked. Without natural predators and despite all human attempts to check the increase of the deer population they kept spreading and destroyed vast regions of the park's vegetation. They literally defoliated the National Park. However, a well-directed reintroduction of 41 wolves between 1995 and 1997 worked wonders: The animals restored the natural balance in the National Park. The wolves hunted the wapiti and, even more crucially, they influenced their behavior so that the wapiti withdrew from the valleys and ravines. The most fascinating result of all was that the presence of the wolf did not only reduce the number of the wapiti from 20.000 to about 7.000 animals, but that the flora in the park also recovered and created new habitats for other species. Scientists and experts call this phenomenon a trophic cascade, a chain reaction created by a change in the food chain within a complex ecosystem. The documentary shows the surprising and dramatic consequences on the park's whole ecosystem that resulted from the reintroduction of the wolf. Contrary to their reputation as mercilessly killing predators, the wolves are creators of new life, restoring the ecosystem that had previously been out of whack.

Die Rückkehr der Wölfe: Das Wunder im Yellowstone-Nationalpark

Seit Jahrhunderten jagen und töten Menschen Wölfe. Sie gelten als gnadenlose Killer, und in vielen Teilen der Welt wurden sie ausgerottet. Yellowstone, der erste Nationalpark der Welt, war keine Ausnahme. Menschen schufen sich dort das idealisierte Bild eines Naturparadieses. Für Wölfe war darin kein Platz, und 1926 wurden die letzten Wölfe getötet. Statt die perfekte Wildnis zu schaffen, löste der Mensch in Yellowstone eine Kettenreaktion mit ungeahnten Folgen aus, die das gesamte Ökosystem des Nationalparks aus dem Gleichgewicht brachte. Ohne Wölfe vermehrte sich die Population der Wapiti-Rothirsche explosionsartig. Der Nationalpark versuchte, den Anstieg des Bestands durch gezielte Jagd in den 1960er Jahren zu dezimieren. Der Erfolg war nur von kurzer Dauer. Ohne Wölfe als natürlichen Feind vermehrten sich die Wapitis erneut sehr schnell, und die Öffentlichkeit wandte sich ebenfalls gegen die Tötung der Wapitis. 70 Jahre nachdem die letzten Wölfe durch den Yellowstone-Nationalpark streiften, wurden dort ab 1995 wieder Wölfe angesiedelt. Ein weltweit einmaliges Experiment, das damals wie heute viele Befürworter, aber auch entschiedene Gegner hatte. Für Yellowstone entpuppte sich die Wiederansiedlung der Wölfe als Segen. Denn die Tiere taten, was von ihnen erwartet wurde. Das Ökosystem veränderte sich grundlegend - mit überraschenden Folgen für Tier- und Pflanzenwelt.

Yellowstone - Das Geheimnis der Wölfe

Directed by Franco-German duo Pierre-Emmanuel Le Goff and Jürgen Hansen, Through the Eyes of an Astronaut is a 28-minute documentary based on images shot on board (and outside) of the International Space Station (ISS) by Thomas Pesquet, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) youngest astronaut, and the 10th French astronaut to travel into space. Enjoy the highlights of his six-month space odyssey, the Proxima Mission, 400 km above the Earth. Pesquet docked with the ISS in November 2016 for a 196-day, 17-hour, and 49-minute mission. The filmmakers and Pesquet had agreed to a shooting plan before the mission, but the result exceeded their expectations! Pesquet kept a daily visual diary -he brought back more than 600 hours of footage, including 40 in IMAX format, sharing his thoughts and feelings on the beauty and fragile nature of our planet, and man’s place in the universe.

Through the Eyes of an Astronaut

Scientists hope that the reintroduction of bears to Europe will have a positive impact on the entire ecosystem, but is Europe ready to coexist with brown bears?

The Return of the Bears

At 38, Thomas Pesquet is the youngest French astronaut to be selected for a 180 days mission in the ISS. Oleg Novitskiy, the Russian pilot and the American Peggy Whitson, the most experienced astronaut in the world, train alongside him.