ARTE Distribution

2016, Paris Fashion Week. A gang of aging robbers attempts the final heist of their career: stealing an 18-carat ring from a woman unknown to them — who turns out to be none other than Kim Kardashian. Their robbery sparks a global media storm, exposing the collision between old-school criminality and modern hyper-celebrity.

Through reconstructions and exclusive testimonies, robbers, police officers, lawyers, jurors, Anglo-Saxon journalists, and an FBI agent reveal what the media has never shown before. Structured like a crime thriller, this pop crime series unfolds the story through the eyes of those who experienced it firsthand. It explores the one question that remains unanswered: where did the ring go?

If light could talk, what would it tell us?

From the Big Bang to the emergence of life, this poetic and scientific series explores, through never-before-seen images created by artist Roman Hill, the forms and movements of the entities in our universe, from the Dark Age to planet Earth. Created by screenwriter Thomas Cadène, astrophysicist David Elbaz, and journalist Corentin Duval, this eight-episode series explores the genesis of the Universe.

What is hair really for? From ants to polar bears, from crabs to whales, hair — fur, bristles or baleen — is almost everywhere in the animal kingdom. A masterpiece of natural engineering, scientists reveal the hidden powers of fur and hair. A journey across the animal world to uncover how this essential feature helps animals survive, adapt and thrive.

ALL ABOUT FUR is a natural historical journey exploring the extraordinary diversity of animal hair and its often overlooked functions, across the wild landscapes of the animal kingdom worldwide. This documentary series examines the role of hair through three fundamental challenges of life: facing the climate, feeding, and defending. From Antarctica to Namibia, Costa Rica, the U.S., Canada, Mexico, France, all the way to India, this visual journey is proof that fur is one of nature’s most ingenious inventions: whether serving as a thermal shield, a hunting tool, or camouflage, it has shaped animal life on Earth.

After Big Tobacco, Big Food is in the hot seat: the first lawsuits reveal thirty years of systematic targeting of children—and thirty years of stifled resistance.

After Big Tobacco, it is Big Food's turn now. In the United States, the first lawsuits are being filed, and they show a global reality: for more than thirty years, the giants of the food industry have been secretly tightening their grip on children. 
 
From North America to the Southern Hemisphere, all the way to Europe, a whole generation grew up under the grip of the junk food industry. Child malnutrition is no longer defined by thinness but by obesity. It is a quiet pandemic, fueled by increasingly sophisticated and intrusive marketing campaigns, from chemical conditioning to social media addiction.
 
Lawyers have unearthed previously unpublished documents that expose the industry's methods in every detail. Secret archives and eyewitness accounts form the backbone of this documentary and shed light on three decades of struggle. 

After The Great Greek Myths, The Iliad and The Odyssey, and The Viking Myths, get ready to dive into the fascinating world of ancient Egypt and the secrets of the gods who shaped its mythology.

The Egyptian civilization, both fascinating and millennial, is one of the richest and most mysterious civilizations in the world. It survived for twice as long as the current Western Christian civilization. It was built around a constellation of gods and goddesses. Between ancient papyri, betrayals and secret powers, Egyptian mythology reveals a spiritual world where each deity, protagonist of the greatest legends of our culture, embodied a facet of life and nature. A journey into the heart of the invisible and the sacred, where beliefs and art collide.

The Dark Side of Cruising reveals what is really going on in the cruise industry, a booming sector whose image of luxury and escapism hides a much darker reality: that of massive pollution, labor exploitation, corruption, privatization of public land and the destruction of marine ecosystems. A two-part, 45-minute investigation into this secretive and extremely powerful industry, which welcomes 30 million passengers each year and generates $75 billion in revenue.

An underwater jewel stretches along northeast Australia. The Great Barrier Reef. Nestled within a maze of mangroves, islands and reefs, it houses some of the planet’s richest and most diverse forms of marine life. Each creature plays its part while sharks, saltwater crocodiles, snakes and jellyfish keep watch.  They are the silent guardians of a balance which is as beautiful as it is fragile. From the top of the food chain these predators conduct the orchestra of life.  But their power can’t protect them in a faltering world. An insidious threat rumbles; the climate compass is going off course. Wild lands are crumbling, gradually succumbing to human attacks. Boundaries blur, and the two worlds collide… and sometimes clash. The rules are being rewritten to the rhythm of this new disorder. But researchers know that ecosystems are unstable without their predators. So how can we coexist with them? How can we create a shared life, where everyone still has their place?

The Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, is home to some of the most breathtaking life forms on the planet. Ravaged by the effects of climate change, some believe all hope is lost. Yet others, driven by courage and determination, are working tirelessly to find ingenious and practical solutions. This is the case for marine biologist Richard Fitzpatrick and his teams, who are dedicated to saving the Great Barrier Reef by implementing innovative scientific protocols to restore damaged coral. Stepping out of their labs, these field scientists show what imagination, science, and action can achieve.

What is the price of sugar, this delicious poison? WIth sequences set in the present day, this historical investigation reveals a global system still fueled by the exploitation of land and people that is rooted in its original sin: slavery.

What is the price of sugar? How much does the fleeting pleasure of this delicious but useless poison really cost? It's a global addiction that has been fueled by the exploitation of land and people for over five centuries. Sugar was the basis of a civilization which, from the transatlantic slave trade to modern forms of exploitation, has never ceased to brutalize labor in all its forms, and to perpetuate immense lies in order to guarantee the prosperity of its industry. The whole world has been shaped by sugar. From Brazil to Réunion, from Europe to South Africa and from India to the Dominican Republic, its production has laid the foundations for the modern capitalist system, devastated the environment, and led to massive population movements. As the curse of sugar continues to haunt certain parts of the world, we set off to these exploited lands to discover a history of which we are all heirs.

The mental health of social media users, especially young people, is in danger. This outcome isn’t the result of some unpredictable evolution of these technologies but rather the consequence of a very well-engineered system designed to make people addicted to social media – one that is oddly reminiscent of the methods the tobacco industry used on people to make them addicted to cigarettes. Today, tech giants are being forced to answer for it in court.

This is a major turning point in the history of the tech industry as lawsuits against Facebook and Instagram (META) YouTube (Google), TikTok (ByteDance) and Snapchat are piling up everywhere across Europe and the United States. Between parents of teenagers who committed suicide after they were manipulated on Snapchat, young girls who developed eating disorders, started suffering from depression and eventually tried to kill themselves because of their addiction to Instagram, each and every one of them wants the tech giants to be held accountable for these excesses. Their argument? Not only did the know from the start what their technologies could do to young people, but on top of that, instead of taking action to put a stop to it, they have made their algorithms stronger, which makes logging out of these trap-like platforms almost impossible.  

Over the past 50 years, the luxury market has grown twentyfold, reaching €1.5 trillion. LVMH, a flagship of the sector, has turned its owner into one of the richest men on the planet. How did such an accumulation of wealth come about?

How did the unnecessary become a necessity in society? Betting big on the luxury goods industry, using the most secret financial techniques and the most unspeakable intelligence-gathering methods, Bernard Arnault turned his company into an economic and cultural emblem of France. Between political influence, covert industrial strategies and bold economic moves, this documentary reveals the inner workings of the geopolitics of luxury and the shifting balance of power between governments and multinational companies.

This documentary series invites the viewer to travel around the world and discover the most beautiful festive events on the planet. It tries to understand the cultural and anthropological aspects that drive people, everywhere on this earth to party. Dive right into the heart of incredible lively and exciting celebrations.

A round-the-world tour of the most extraordinary festivities on the planet, that explores the profoundly human and cultural aspects of these popular gatherings, often involving letting go and social transgression. From Ecuador to Cambodia, Japan to Mexico, anthropologist Anne-Sylvie Malbrancke meets the men and women who are determined to party, have fun and tell us why and how they do it. Whether they are amateurs or regulars, they let us feel their emotions for the time of the event. An immersion in unique cultures, deep-rooted traditions and breathtaking landscapes.

The world’s most widely enjoyed beverage is reinventing itself. Under pressure from climate change and decades of harmful practices, coffee is entering a new era—one that must be both sustainable and fair for those who grow it.

What are these new sustainable routes for coffee? What are the new solutions the industry is developing for tomorrow? Are they sustainable? And what kind of hope do these new agronomic, botanical and social experiments give us for the future of humanity? Coffee, a universal beverage and the world's leading agricultural resource in terms of value, is in crisis due to the climatic challenges threatening its production. However, a new sector known as “specialty coffee”, is emerging, advocating for eco-friendly and sustainable practices like those used for craft beer or top-of-the-range chocolate. This movement has been expanding rapidly over the past thirty years, offering new opportunities to coffee growers and reviving old techniques. At the heart of this transformation is Tom Darval, a young barista, who explores some of the coffee bean's most emblematic countries. Through his professional and personal quest, Tom meets agronomists and local players, as they are on a quest to create new farming methods and understand their impact on communities. This journey illustrates a hope for change in the face of environmental threats, while celebrating the values of togetherness and sharing this beverage conveys.