S2010 E1 • Israël : retour sur une séparation

En juin 2002, l’armée israélienne a entrepris la construction d’une « barrière de sécurité », destinée à prévenir les attaques terroristes. Elle encercle aujourd’hui la quasi-totalité de la Cisjordanie. Cette clôture de plus 300 kilomètres de béton et de ferraille, bourrés de capteurs électroniques et de caméras, a détruit en quelques mois les liens traditionnels qui unissaient les populations arabes vivant dans la région. Pour elles, ce mur est une tragédie, un mur de séparation. En 2002, Hubert Dubois avait filmé pour ARTE Reportage, les prémices de ce drame auprès d’une famille arabe israélienne, les Rifaï. Ils vivent à Salem, en Israël. Juste en bas de leur maison les bulldozers arrachaient les oliviers pour tracer les premiers tronçons du mur. En face, à trois kilomètres, se trouve le village de Rumané en Cisjordanie où habite l’autre partie de la famille. A l’époque, on allait chez les uns et les autres pratiquement tous les jours, on vivait ensemble, avec ou sans la nationalité israélienne. Sept ans plus tard nous retrouvons les Rifaï, désormais séparés par la clôture.

Première diffusion : 2 février 2010

S2010 E2 • Episode 2

Première diffusion : 31 août 2010

S2010 E3 • Episode 3

Première diffusion : 7 septembre 2010

S2010 E4 • The Voynich Code: The Worlds Most Mysterious Manuscript

It is the world's most mysterious manuscript. A book, written by an unknown author, illustrated with pictures that are as bizarre as they are puzzling - and written in a language that even the best cryptographers have been unable to decode. No wonder then, that this script even has a part in Dan Brown's latest bestseller, "The Lost Symbol". The Voynich Manuscript has captivated academics and occultists in equal measure since its discovery 100 years ago. The decoders of the Japanese Purple Code, physicists with high-performance modern computers and polymath historians have all tried their luck. But to date nobody has been able to decipher the book's contents. "The Voynich Mystery" follows a completely new lead in the hunt for the author's identity and uncovers the secret of the mysterious manuscript using the methods of material science. To the present day many historians believe the manuscript to be a fake, allegedly by the New York antique book dealer, Wilfrid Voynich, in 1912 so that he could offer it to wealthy manuscript collectors. Voynich did not, however, succeed in selling the mysterious manuscript to a collector during his lifetime. After his death, it eventually found its way into the collection of the University of Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The manuscript's age, origin and contents remained unknown. For almost a century, the numerous illustrations in particular have given rise to the most adventurous speculation and astounding theories. The secret lettering itself is also still a source of great mystery. But now a new investigative approach has shed new light into the maze of conflicting theories and ideas. At the home of the Voynich Manuscript, the University of Yale, the mysterious text has been looked at again using the methods of material science. A pro omnia production for ORF UNIVERSUM in co-production with ARTE and bm:uk

S2010 E5 • Jeans: A Faded Blue Planet

From humble beginnings as durable clothing for workers in the mining towns of the Wild West, jeans have evolved into a cultural icon. The attire of a cowboy, a hero, a rock star and an ex-convict, jeans have played a part in antiestablishment movements and mainstream fashion alike. The journey of the jean, a road-movie which leads it from its beginnings to a life as a political symbol and, in our days, an icon ruling a global empire, the documentary looks at the blue-jean phenomenon from a wacky new angle, observing its impact on our lives and civilization. In 2000, a vintage 1880 Levi's jeans is discovered in an abandoned mine. Auctioned on eBay, the pants, which originally sold for 99 cents, reached a price of $46,532! This amazing story sums up the whole blue jeans phenomenon in a nutshell: a legendary garment, mass-produced, which witnessed the Industrial Revolution and clad cowboys on the western frontier, is now a fashion statement worldwide, for men and women, young and old: an icon of modernity which has lasted for 150 years. With flying colors, the jeans have sailed through early marketing, the Internet, the world of collectors, the end of the Cold War, and now globalization. Their eternal popularity begs a question: Why? From San Francisco, cradle of the Levi, to Osaka, where the world's most beautiful blue-jean fabrics are now made, with stops in Africa and Northern Europe, the documentary tells the saga of the blue jean: the appearance or disappearance of certain elements (rivets, threads, cloth), the fabric (the weight and quality of the cotton), changes in cut (vagaries of fashion or wartime shortages) and shape (the expanding girth of the population, the conversion to ladies' wear). Changes in rivet, stitch and pocket placement trace the history of jeans that collectors treasure and pay for handsomely. Traditional dyeing techniques and hand-made denim live on in a few workshops, primarily in Japan, dedicated to maintaining the highest quality of fabric and control of every step in the process of making tailored jeans. On the other end of the spectrum, even the fading of jeans to give them a worn look is done on an industrial scale. Through interviews with fashion designers, jean tailors, historians and aficionados, Jeans traces the dissemination of denim and its cultural myths from America to the rest of the world and the formation of a global industry. All in a quest to find the reason why jeans have been so successful.

S2010 E6 • Broken tail ou le testament d'un tigre

Pourquoi le tigre Broken Tail a-t-il quitté la réserve naturelle de Ranthambore, en Inde, pour trouver la mort 300 kilomètres plus loin sous les roues d'un train? Un périple à la découverte de félins particulièrement menacés et à la rencontre des habitants du Rajasthan.

Première diffusion : 3 septembre 2010

S2010 E7 • L’esprit des plantes

Over the recent years, a small but growing group of researchers from Austria, Germany, Italy, UK, Japan, South Africa and the USA, has developed a new scientific field of research: the neurobiology of plants. Their discoveries question the traditional boundaries set between the animal and the vegetable kingdom: plants are capable to develop the cognitive process claimed by humans and animals. If plants can move, and feel... Could they possibly think ? In a creative and captivating scientific investigation style, through spectacular specialist photography and CGI, and re-creating scientific experiments, this documentary is bound to change your own perception of plants.

Première diffusion : 22 janvier 2010