Explorers & Explorations

Explorers & Explorations

A selection of films of travel and adventure, discovery and cultural encounters, here and there, past and present!

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Explorers & Explorations
  • Meru

    Directed by Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi • Documentary • With Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, Renan Ozturk, Jon Krakauer • 2015 • 90 minutes

    In the high-stakes pursuit of big-wall climbing, the Shark’s Fin on Mount Meru may be the ultimate prize. Sitting 21,000 feet above the sacred Ganges Ri...

  • Pony Boys

    Directed by Eric Stange • Documentary • 2022 • 22 minutes

    Summer, 1967. Two Massachusetts boys – 9 and 11 — are desperate to visit Expo ’67 in Montreal — the largest World’s Fair ever. But their parents can’t take them. Then Mom comes up with the solution: hitch their pet Shetland pony King to a...

  • Shaka

    Directed by Morgan Le Faucheur • Documentary • With Mathieu Crepel, Koa and Eddie Rothman • 2018 • 77 minutes

    Showcasing breathtaking footage of mountains and waves around the world, Shaka follows snowboarding world champion and renowned athlete Mathieu Crepel as he faces the biggest challenge o...

  • Expedition Content

    Directed by Ernst Karel & Veronika Kusumaryati • Documentary • 2020 • 78 minutes

    Note: For best viewing results, please manually adjust the streaming quality to 720p or higher.

    An immersive marvel of sonic ethnography, Expedition Content draws on audio recordings made by recent college graduate...

  • The World Before Your Feet

    Directed by Jeremy Workman • Documentary • With Matt Green • 2018 • 95 minutes

    There are 8,000 miles of sidewalks, paths and roads in New York City and for the past six years Matt Green has been walking them all--every street, block, pedestrian overpass and park lane. A five borough journey that...

  • Echoes of the Invisible

    Directed by Steve Elkins • Documentary • With Paul Salopek, Rachel Sussman, Al Arnold, Anil Ananthaswamy, Lynda Lynch, Losang Samten • 2020 • 106 minutes

    "Echoes of the Invisible" interweaves a mosaic of profound quests. A blind man runs alone through Death Valley as journalist Paul Salopek walk...

  • Gringo Trails

    Directed by Pegi Vail • Documentary • 2013 • 79 minutes

    Are tourists destroying the planet-or saving it? How do travelers change the remote places they visit, and how are they changed? From the Bolivian jungle to the party beaches of Thailand, and from the deserts of Timbuktu, Mali to the breath...

  • 10th Parallel

    Directed by Silvio Da-Rin • Documentary • 2011 • 87 minutes

    10th PARALLEL takes us on a 300-mile journey up Brazil's Envira river into the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, to the frontier of a territory populated by the country's uncontacted indigenous tribes. Our guide is Jose Carlos Meirelles, ...

  • Travels in the Congo (Voyage au Congo)

    Directed by Marc Allégret • Documentary • 1927 • 117 minutes

    In 1925, Marc Allégret accompanied André Gide on a journey to French Equatorial Africa, the Congo, as his secretary, and novice filmmaker. Filming throughout their 11-month travels, and only three years after Nanook of the North, Allég...

  • Antarctic Edge: 70° South

    Directed by Dena Seidel • Documentary • 2015 • 72 minutes

    A thrilling journey to one of the world's most perilous environments, Antarctic Edge: 70° South follows a team of scientists as they explore the West Antarctic Peninsula.

    In the wake of devastating climate events like Superstorm Sandy an...

  • Antarctica: A Year on Ice

    Directed by Anthony Powell • Documentary • With Genevieve Bachman • 2017 • 92 minutes

    Antarctica: A Year On Ice is a visually stunning journey to the end of the world with the hardy and devoted people who live there year-round. The research stations scattered throughout the continent host a clos...

  • Around India with a Movie Camera

    Directed by Sandhyu Suri • Documentary • 2018 • 72 minutes

    Award-winning filmmaker Sandhya Suri (I for India) skillfully weaves together archival footage—including hand colored sequences—with a new score by composer Soumik Datta to create an emotionally resonant story about life across India fro...

  • A Chef's Voyage

    Directed by Remi Anfosso • Documentary • With David Kinch, Christine Muhlke, Jenny Yun, Kristofer Lord, Mitch Leinhard • 2020 • 90 minutes

    A Chef's Voyage follows the celebrated American Chef David Kinch and his team from Manresa, their 3 Star Michelin restaurant in California, for a one-of-a-ki...

  • Happy People: A Year in the Taiga

    Directed by Werner Herzog & Dmitry Vasyukov • Documentary • With Werner Herzog • 2013 • 90 minutes

    Werner Herzog takes viewers on yet another unforgettable journey into remote and extreme natural landscapes. The acclaimed filmmaker presents this visually stunning documentary about the people liv...

  • Maidentrip

    Directed by Jillian Schlesinger • Documentary • 2013 • 82 minutes

    14-year-old Laura Dekker sets out - camera in hand - on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to be the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone. In the wake of a year-long battle with Dutch authorities that sparked...

  • The Marquis of Wavrin

    Directed by Grace Winter & Luc Plantier • Documentary • 2017 • 85 minutes

    The man squats by the fire, holding an object slightly larger than his palm. He feels it carefully, pressing and shaping it, then turns it upside down and fills it with hot sand. The man is a member of the Shuar people, an...

  • Penguin Counters

    Directed by Peter Getzels & Harriet Gordon • Documentary • 2016 • 68 minutes

    Armed with low-tech gear and high-minded notions that penguin populations hold the key to human survival, Ron Naveen lays bare his 30 year love affair with the world's most pristine scientific laboratory: Antarctica. Th...

  • Route One/USA (part 1)

    Directed by Robert Kramer • Documentary • 1990 • 125 minutes

    Part 1 of 2 In 1988, nearly a decade after leaving the US for France, renegade filmmaker Robert Kramer returns. “Back,” he emphasizes. Not “home.” To try to understand the contemporary United States, he decides to travel the entire len...

  • Route One/USA (part 2)

    Directed by Robert Kramer • Documentary • 1990 • 129 minutes

    Part 2 of 2

    In 1988, nearly a decade after leaving the US for France, renegade filmmaker Robert Kramer returns. “Back,” he emphasizes. Not “home.” To try to understand the contemporary United States, he decides to travel the entire le...

  • Royal Journey

    Directed by David Bairstow • Documentary • 1951 • 54 minutes

    A documentary account of the five-week visit of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh to Canada and the United States in the fall of 1951 includes the pageantry of Québec City; the National War Memorial in Ottawa; the Trenton Ai...

  • Summer Pasture

    Directed by Lynn True & Nelson Walker III • Documentary • 2010 • 85 minutes

    Summer Pasture is a feature-length documentary that chronicles one summer with a young family amidst a period of great uncertainty. Locho, his wife Yama, and their infant daughter, nicknamed Jiatomah ('pale chubby girl')...

  • Suspension

    Directed by Simón Uribe Martínez • Documentary • 2020 • 75 minutes

    Deep in the misty jungle of southern Colombia, between treacherously steep mountain slopes, stands an unfinished concrete bridge as an absurd symbol of human folly. Once intended as a link in the new “bypass” that was supposed to...

  • Winter Nomads

    Directed by Manuel von Sturler • Documentary • 2013 • 85 minutes

    Pascal, 53, and Carole, 28, are shepherds. Every year in November they embark on their long winter transhumance: four months during which they will have to cover 600 km in the Swiss-French region, accompanied by three donkeys, four...

  • Ziyara

    Directed by Simone Bitton • Documentary • 2021 • 99 minutes

    Celebrated documentary filmmaker Simone Bitton (Ben Barka, Wall, Rachel) returns with her most personal film to date. Inviting viewers on a cinematic pilgrimage to her homeland of Morocco, Bitton explores her Jewish roots through the sp...