In The News

The new episode of the WILD HOPE documentary series, Mission Impossible, debuts today on centering on Dr. Pat Brown, founder of Impossible Foods, and his mission to combat climate change and biodiversity loss through plant-based innovation and sustainable land use practices. 

DOC NYC, America's largest documentary film festival, returns Wednesday for its 14th edition in New York City, with films available for viewing both in-person and online.

The festival showcases an international lineup of more than 200 feature-length and short films, including many world, North American and NYC premieres. Held in-person Nov. 13-21 at venues in Manhattan, the festival also streams many features online through Dec. 1.

Impossible doesn’t seem to be in acclaimed biochemist Pat Brown’s vocabulary. But that word is central to the revolutionary Impossible Foods brand he pioneered. Looking behind the scenes in the documentary “Wild Hope: Mission Impossible” at this year’s Coronado Island Film Festival (CIFF), attendees glimpsed insights into this pioneering scientist’s quest to create the best meaty vegan burger and make the world a better place.

Last month, NBC premiered its new medical drama, Brilliant Minds, starring Zachary Quinto as Dr. Oliver Wolf. The premise is intriguing: a motorcycle-riding neurologist, who’s as unorthodox as he is skilled, treats a wide array of patients with neurological conditions most people can’t even fathom. Between cases, we glimpse into Wolf’s troubled past and his own neurodivergence to paint a complete picture of a man who’s revolutionizing his field.

The Oliver Sacks that most of the world knew — the one I fell in love with after we met in 2008, when he was 75 — was the beloved neurologist and the author of many best-selling books, admired worldwide. A forthcoming volume of Oliver’s letters, nearly 350 of them, spanning 55 years, from age 27 to 82, provides a more complicated picture of the man often referred to in his later years as “the poet laureate of medicine.” 

When Sonia Vallabh learned she has the genetic mutation for prion disease, she and her husband dropped everything to change careers. Today, they lead a Harvard/MIT lab searching for a cure.

Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to Every Little Thing, Sally Aitken’s documentary about a hummingbird rehabilitator that premiered in Sundance and has gone on to play multiple festivals including CPH:DOX.

HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, Tiger Baby, and Emaho Films have set the world premiere of Taira Malaney’s "Turtle Walker" at DOC NYC.

High in Romania's Carpathian Mountains, advocates are pushing to protect one of Europe's last stretches of wilderness and banking on sustainable tourism to revive a struggling rural area. 

HHMI Tangled Bank Studios' head of studio, Jared Lipworth, appointed Jackson Wild board chairman.

Nature documentary Wilding has signed distribution deals for key territories, with the film crossing the £500,000 mark in the UK-Ireland as the highest-grossing documentary of 2024.

Grammy-nominated producer Jayda G is joined in conversation by zoology graduate and rapper Louis VI to discuss Blue Carbon, her new documentary that brings music and science together to highlight the climate change crisis.

Filmed with privileged access over several years to key scientists on four continents, this is the inside story of the development of a new malaria vaccine that could change the very nature of the fight.

A hugely hopeful story, one in which even the depression left by a cow’s hoofprint can give way to a profusion of life.

 An inspiring call to arms to trust and support nature or face dire consequences.

"[Blue Carbon] is rare ray of sunshine cutting through the gloom, it is, overwhelmingly, a story of hope," according to Vogue World

We can save the world if we really want to, thanks to Isabella and Charlie’s brave experiment.

Knepp estate was £1.5m in debt. Now it thrums with wildlife, visitors flock there – and farmers are stampeding to copy its success. We meet the star of a captivating film about this amazing rebirth

MetFilm Distribution has confirmed that they will release David Allen’s Wilding on June 14, in cinemas across the UK and Ireland.

The Grammy-nominated Canadian producer/DJ hosts Blue Carbon, a film where music and climate activism meet.

The Grammy-nominated Canadian producer/DJ hosts Blue Carbon, a film where music and climate activism meet

To her fans, DJ and music producer Jayda Guy is the Grammy-nominated artist spinning propulsive dance beats at some of the world’s biggest festivals. But in a new documentary, Guy returns to her “nerdy” roots as a marine scientist — bringing viewers on a journey to explore one of nature's most potent climate allies: blue carbon.

Scott Feinberg lists Blue Carbon: Nature's Hidden Power as a film with "Exceptional Merit" 

For a conversation that’s been little but doom and gloom for years at this point, a new angle is exactly what we need to keep climate change front of mind for the future.

CNN Films embarks on an international adventure to find nature-based solutions for a warming planet in Blue Carbon: Nature’s Hidden Power from MakeWaves and HHMI Tangled Bank Studios. Starring Grammy® nominated DJ and marine toxicologist Jayda G and featuring the music of Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA.

A ‘NOVA’ presentation on PBS follows scientists’ quest—often in icy locales—to find ancient genetic material, which has revealed evidence of flora and fauna from millions of years ago.

New one-hour film documents major breakthroughs in discovering ancient DNA and how these genes can unlock ancient secrets about life on our planet. 

Met Film Sales has acquired international rights to David Allen’s nature documentary Wilding, which it will introduce to buyers at next week’s European Film Market.

Sally Aitken’s latest documentary is a miraculous, astonishing glimpse into the work of Terry Masear at her Los Angeles hummingbird rehab center. 

Sally Aitken’s film progresses, letting the audience come to understand its main subject better, it grows deeper than that, bringing us to an entirely new way of seeing the world.

The rare film that can work as both education tool and emotional experience.

Inspired by Terry Masear’s book about her work with the world's smallest birds, Sally Aitken’s documentary follows her during a busy caretaking season in Los Angeles.

You probably don’t love hummingbirds as much as Terry Masear does, but the exceedingly graceful, beautifully photographed documentary Every Little Thing will help change that.

There is an especially delightful, humble, rejuvenating documentary film that recently premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival that is all about hummingbirds. 

A celebration of some of our tiniest and most magical creatures

Serene footage of hummingbirds mid-flight make Every Little Thing worth screening. The story of the woman who cares for these adorable creatures is another good reason to see it.

Award-winning actor, Andy Serkis, narrates this stunning IMAX®/Giant Screen film that brought the world’s largest animal to the world’s largest screen, BLUE WHALES: RETURN OF THE GIANTS. Jared Lipworth is the Head of Studio and Executive Producer at HHMI Tangle Bank Studios and discusses the challenges and triumphs of a film like this.

Wilding is a genuinely wholesome experience

Wilding, this fascinating documentary, narrated by Isabella Tree herself, traces the story of rewilding the ecosystem at the estate at Knepp in Sussex, in the south of England.

Tree and Burrell's extraordinary project will give hope to anyone concerned about the challenges the earth faces after centuries of industrial farming. 

“Some of the filming was a rival to Attenborough! A bird swooping on a dragonfly. An owl savouring a worm. And, most extraordinary of all pigs diving for mussels.”

The series, airing on PBS, releases its “Woodpecker Wars” episode on Friday, which explains the plight of the red-cockaded woodpecker, an endangered species that was once fairly common in the southeastern United States.

Sean B. Carroll talks to Realscreen about highlighting the "change-makers," who are working to restore the planet and protect local ecology, in Tangled Bank Studios' new series "Wild Hope." 

Wild Hope is featured at the KCET and PBS SoCal Earth Focus Environmental Film Festival. 

The inspirational story of the world’s biggest animals and their journey to recovery.

Jayda G announces her new album, "Guy" and talks about her work on "Blue Carbon."

Jayda G talks to Time Out magazine about her work on "Blue Carbon."

Sean B. Carroll, the Head of HHMI Studios, talks about "All That Breathes."

The small studio has about 20 employees pursuing 10 active film projects, Sean B. Carroll said. While “All That Breathes” might be an outlier in its relative lack of emphasis on formal science, it embodies themes that have been at the core of Tangled Bank’s mission since he founded it in 2011

"All That Breathes" premieres on HBO on February 7.

All That Breathes earned Outstanding Nonfiction Feature, the Cinema Eye Honors’ equivalent to the Oscars’ Best Documentary Feature.

All That Breathes, produced by HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, a nonprofit arm of the science philanthropy Howard Hughes Medical Institute, represents an evolution in science documentary filmmaking. To attract bigger, younger, and more diverse audiences, producers and directors have moved from science explainers, once the bane of high school science classes, to narrative features filled with human drama. That evolution mirrors Tangled Bank’s own.

The potential loss of coastal ecosystems is the subject of a new documentary from HHMI Tangled Bank Studios.

Blue Carbon listed in CNN's slate of upcoming films.

In 2008, we followed an American entrepreneur who dreamed of returning a wasteland to greatness. Now, 14 years later, Greg Carr has something to show the world. And we couldn't resist a return to Gorongosa when Carr sends invitations like this.  

All That Breathes is included on Hollywood Reporters' Oscar nomination shortlist for Best Documentary Feature.

Interview with director Shaunak Sen at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Documentary event. 

All That Breathes is one of Time's 10 best movies of 2022.

All That Breathes is one of 25 best movies of 2022. 

All That Breathes is one of the best films of 2022.

All That Breathes continued its increasingly impressive run of awards and acclaim this year, by picking up the Gotham Film & Media Institute’s best documentary award

"Attention to the macro and micro infuses nearly every frame of this nonfiction masterwork, which earned prizes at Sundance and Cannes this year and is maybe the most beautifully realized documentary in recent memory."

 Documentary Awards Shortlists Announced: 'Fire of Love,' 'The Territory,' 'All That Breathes', 'All the Beauty and the Bloodshed' Gain Traction

The documentary, Ending HIV in America focuses on the scientific advances since AIDS and HIV emerged 40 years ago. The film was produced by NOVA, Global Health Reporting Center and HHMI Tangled Bank Studios.

This compelling documentary, which premieres on PBS stations nationwide Wednesday Sept. 21, spotlights the scientific innovations and dynamic community-led responses, from San Francisco to Birmingham, Ala., that have come together to tackle one of the most elusive deadly viruses ever to infect humans.

"All That Breathes" is a frontrunner for an Oscar nomination, according to IndieWire. 

The 2022 Smithsonian Folklife Festival will highlight positive environmental stories from the Smithsonian’s Earth Optimism movement. A highlight of “Earth Optimism × Folklife” is the outdoor screening of the one-hour documentary film, "My Garden of a Thousand Bees."

India’s "All That Breathes" followed up its victory at the Sundance Film Festival by winning top documentary honors in Cannes.

Director Shaunak Sen credits HHMI Tangled Bank Studios for ensuring the scientific accuracy in “All That Breathes.”

India’s turbulent politics, and the immense challenges facing the world’s largest democracy, form the backdrop to the most high-profile Indian film at Cannes this year: Shaunak Sen’s hauntingly beautiful “All That Breathes,” which won the grand jury prize at Sundance earlier this year.

Watch an exclusive interview with "All That Breathes" Director Shaunak Sen at the Cannes Film Festival. 

The award-winning documentary All That Breathes is a meditation on life in Delhi through the eyes and hands of two brothers that nurse injured birds back to health.

"All That Breathes," the grand jury prize winner in the world cinema documentary competition at the 2022 edition of Sundance, has been acquired by HBO Documentary Films.

HBO Documentary Films has acquired worldwide television rights to the documentary feature “All That Breathes.”

HBO Documentary Films has bought worldwide television rights for Cannes Special Screenings title “All That Breathes.”

"All That Breathes" will screen at this year's Cannes Film Festival. 

Delhi-based filmmaker Shaunak Sen's documentary "All That Breathes" will premiere in the Special Screening segment at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.

There is no denying the power [of "All That Breathes"] or its subject; there’s also no denying the heartbreak of its images.

“All That Breathes” is the kind of poetic environmental ode that opens itself up to much more than its base, and would benefit from a theatrical distributor able to let its birds soar on the scale that the big screen provides.

The grand jury prize for international documentaries went to “All That Breathes,” Shaunak Sen’s beautifully observed film. 

"All That Breathes" won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at the recently concluded Sundance Film Festival.

Shaunak Sen’s "All That Breathes" — awarded the Grand Jury Documentary Prize at Sundance Film Festival this week — is the kind of film that doesn’t join the dots as much as it just underlines them.

"All That Breathes" artfully ties together the social and ecological concerns which plague Delhi. Vividly capturing the sights and sounds of the city, we get a keen sense of its fragile ecosystem.

Shaunak Sen’s "All That Breathes" is one stunner of a documentary, not to mention a persuasive reminder to look up into the sky.

In a little under three minutes, Sen has encapsulated a vision of New Delhi in which modern life, particularly pollution and overpopulation, have placed new strain on the balance between humans and nature. What follows is one of the more dreamily provocative documentaries I’ve ever seen.

Shaunak Sen’s hypnotic work of urban ecology focuses on two brothers and the birds they help amid the world's smoggiest ecosystem.

Shaunak Sen’s stunning documentary, playing at the Sundance Film Festival this week, is about two brothers in Delhi who rescue kites

In New Delhi, two brothers devote their lives to rescuing black kites in Shaunak Sen’s mesmerizing documentary

The 26 jury-awarded and six audience-awarded prizes recognize achievement in global independent storytelling. Bold, intimate, and culture shifting stories prevailed across categories, with Grand Jury Prize awarded to All That Breathes (World Cinema Documentary).

An ambitiously intricate study of the intersection of environmental collapse, religious tension, and the love of two Muslim brothers for a feathered scavenger unnervingly falling from a smoggy Delhi sky.

A visually stunning film directed by Shaunak Sen that introduces viewers to two brothers in Delhi, India, dedicated to protecting the black kite, a bird of prey threatened by the city’s pollution and other hazards.

Through the story of the two brothers, Nadeem Shahzad (44) and Mohammad Saud (40), Sen wanted to capture the fact that “nature is not happening elsewhere but right in the heart of our urban jungles”

The world premiere of "All That Breathes" will take place at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21.

"All That Breathes" will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival

Best Specialist Factual Programme:

Horizon Special: The Vaccine
Wingspan Productions for BBC

The first round of judging is complete, and Realscreen is excited to reveal the nominees for the upcoming 2022 Realscreen Awards.

“The first film of our season was called My Garden of a Thousand Bees, and it came out of COVID,” he explains. “Wildlife macro photographer, Martin Dorn, who lives in Bristol, England, has extraordinary lenses and rigs where he shoots insects. And because he couldn’t go out and he couldn’t travel, he decided, ‘I want to shoot the bees in my garden. I’ve always been interested in them and now I have the time to actually spend to film them.’”

Ecologists studying Gorongosa say that’s created an imbalance, and not only because predators regulate populations of their prey by eating them. “The really interesting idea,” says Sean B. Carroll, “is that predators can shape behavior.”

The World Congress of Science and Factual Producers (WCSFP) announced the nominations for the Buzzies, the group’s awards celebrating the best in science and factual storytelling, on Thursday (Oct. 21). The Buzzies recognize science, history and natural history projects in short- and long-form programs and multi-platform work, as well as for innovation and impact.

In “My Garden of a Thousand Bees,” premiering Wednesday, Oct 20 (check local listings), as the first installment of the series’ 40th season, wildlife photographer Martin Dohrn uses lockdown to his advantage as he turns his camera on the bees in the backyard of his urban Bristol, England, home.

Thanks to Martin Dohrn and his determination to shine a light on bees’ complex lives and importance to our  ultimate well-being, I guarantee that after watching Nature: My Garden of a Thousand Bees, you’ll never take them for granted again.

When the pandemic lockdown started in 2020, wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn found something interesting to do right in his own backyard. He adapted some of his camera equipment to focus on very tiny creatures and then began filming the bees in his small garden in Bristol, England.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, British wildlife cameraman Martin Dohrn filmed many diverse species of bees in his urban garden for the new episode “My Garden of a Thousand Bees.”

Kicking off the 40th season of the acclaimed documentary series, this film follows wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn as he sets out to record all the bees in his tiny urban garden in Bristol, England, filming them with one-of-a-kind lenses he forged at his kitchen table (8 p.m., PBS).

Taking refuge from the coronavirus pandemic, wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn set out to record all the bees he could find in his tiny urban garden in Bristol, England, filming them with one-of-a kind lenses he forged on his kitchen table. Eventually, he gets so close to the bees, he can identify individuals just by looking at them.

Through exclusive interviews with Sacks’s friends, colleagues and peers (including Jonathan Miller), as well as archive footage, the film is an eye-opening celebration of the life and work of this extraordinary scientist and man.

The genius of neurologist Oliver Sacks was founded on his huge empathy for his patients. Yet, for years, he struggled to come to terms with himself.
 

There are no remarkable innovations in this documentary on a much-missed literary and scientific original. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who gained wider fame with books such as Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, talks fluently and hilariously some months before his death in 2015.

The late British neurologist and writer gets a positively glowing bio-documentary, chronicling his troubled childhood, his struggles with his homosexuality and drug addiction, and his pioneering research into autism and neurodiversity. That’s a lot to tackle, and the film just skims the surface of its subject, but it’s brightened by Sacks’s own irresistible presence.

This documentary about the famed neurologist and author is one of the loveliest and most thought-provoking films of 2021.

Yet one of the indelible lessons of Ric Burns’s remarkable new documentary, shot in the final months of Sacks’s life, was just how tempestuous his inner life had been. He let slip some of his secrets in his autobiography, On the Move, which was published soon after his death, but Burns’s film, full of humour and pathos, provides further insights.

Take your pick of extraordinary moments in this excellent documentary about the neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks. In 2015, aged 82, knowing he had months to live, Sacks sat down at home in New York and talked to the camera with great honesty.

It’s well worth tracking down one of the September 29 special cinema screenings of Ric Burns' lovingly made documentary portrait of the writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks, or seeking it out online.

When we first meet Sacks in Burns’s film, we find a charismatic man full of life, warmth and humour. He does not seem like a man facing a devastating diagnosis. However, time is running out and you sense that Sacks still has a lot more to say.

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life is in UK & Irish cinemas for a One Night Only special event on 29 September.

"My Garden of a Thousand Bees" premieres on Nature on Wednesday, October 20. 

"Race for the Vaccine" follows five research groups as they forgo sleep and family time to develop vaccines using approaches ranging from tried-and-true inactivated viruses to cutting-edge messenger RNA techniques. 

"Our Gorongosa" broadcasts on WORLD Channel on August 1.

Nature's Fear Factor has been nominated for an Outstanding Nature Documentary Emmy. Watch the award ceremony on September 29 at 8 p.m. EDT. 

In Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, director Ric Burns uses a blend of archival and exclusive footage to illustrate the journey of a man who, until the end, explored and valued the lives of his patients beyond their symptoms.

A remarkable picture of scientific research, this documentary deciphers the unprecedented deployment of global vaccination.

A very educational documentary follows five teams of researchers, in their laboratories but also at home, in China, the United States, Europe and Australia, for fifteen months.

Sean B. Carroll, vice president for science education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a professor of biology at the University of Maryland, explains how the chiropractic arguments against vaccines reminded him of arguments against evolution.

Jackson Wild, in collaboration with Day’s Edge Productions and HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, is proud to announce the 2021 Jackson Wild Media Lab Fellows. 

This painstakingly thorough 90-minute documentary started following scientists across continents when they first began working on finding a coronavirus vaccine.

In time to come there will inevitably be movies and other dramas about these Covid times, but this was the real deal and all the more engrossing for it.

If you weren’t moved by the human endeavour on display here, the brilliance, yet, unfailingly, the modesty, you must have a brick for a heart. Or be an anti-vaxxer.

There was talk of sequencing, spikes and viral vectors. But all of it was humanised when the film introduced us to the individual scientists.

This is the extraordinary inside story of the unprecedented quest to develop vaccines to fight Covid-19...

This masterful, mind-boggling film gets up close with the scientists who huddled over computers in their PJs to save millions of lives. The wonder of it!

Race for the Vaccine features a number of poignant human moments.

The documentary, "Race for the Vaccine,” debuts Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern on CNN. The network had access to teams of scientists around the world who were trying to develop the vaccine, including George Gao of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

CNN has set a May 15 debut for Race for the Vaccine, a documentary narrated and produced by chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta about global scientists scrambling to develop and manufacture vaccines to battle the coronavirus pandemic.

PBS has produced a radiant documentary, directed by Ric Burns, that shows how Sacks embodies what Sir William Osler said, over a century ago: “It is the good physician that treats the disease. It is the great physician who treats the patient with the disease.” No wonder Sacks was so beloved.

This past week, a documentary on Sacks premiered on the PBS “American Masters” series...Sacks did as much as anyone to introduce autism to a general audience in the United States...

In the PBS presentation, documentary filmmaker Ric Burns chronicles Sacks’ storied career as well as his long struggle with his sexuality.

A new documentary takes a painstakingly intimate look at the famously private British writer and neurologist, who died in 2015

The innovative wordsmith's time spent in and outside of the world of neurological studies is captured in this portrait of both his breakthroughs and insecurities.

The physician and author, subject of a new PBS documentary airing this week, was a contributor to The New York Review for over three decades.

This week, it just so happens that the Burnses are having back-to-back premieres on PBS, with Ken debuting an expansive three-part docuseries on Ernest Hemingway, which he directed with longtime creative partner Lynn Novick, and Ric screening Oliver Sacks: His Own Life about the famed writer and neurologist.

Oliver Sacks: His Own life premiering on PBS on Friday, April 9

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life packs an emotional punch

Audiences appreciate the growing trend seen in films like Our Gorongosa that feature a local conservation as the main storyteller.  

"The Serengeti Rules" is a great film to take you to parts of the world far beyond your couch.

Variety's Clayton Davis predicts that OLIVER SACKS: HIS OWN LIFE will be a contender for a feature doc Oscar nomination.

BBC Two and CNN Films have partnered to commission hour-long documentary special “Vaccine: The Inside Story,” to be produced and directed by award-winning British filmmaker and former virologist Catherine Gale.

The film, which will be known as Race For The Vaccine in the US and has the working title of Vaccine: The Inside Story in the UK is being produced by Wingspan Productions and Global Health Reporting Center, in association with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Tangled Bank Studios, and set to debut in spring next year.

...since establishing Tangled Bank Studios in 2012, and executive producing such acclaimed films as the Emmy winning The Serengeti Rules and Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, [Sean B. Carroll] has made a point of tackling the big subjects such as climate change, vaccines and mass extinction with an aim to inspire and educate rather than elicit fear and hopelessness.

The global race for a vaccine against the COVID-19 virus has hatched a feature documentary from CNN Films and the BBC.

CNN Films and BBC will take viewers inside the efforts of researchers around the world trying to develop and manufacture vaccines to fight the global coronavirus pandemic, in a documentary feature slated to air on CNN and BBC Two in the spring of 2021.

HHMI Tangled Bank Studios' Head of Studio, Sean B. Carroll addresses science denialism 

HHMI Tangled Bank Studios is a rarity in the film world — a nonprofit boutique film studio housed within the internationally recognized Howard Hughes Medical Institute, one of the largest private, nonprofit science philanthropies in the U.S. dedicated to advancing scientific research and science education. 

Burns’s documentary, made shortly before Sacks’s death from cancer in 2015, traces the blossoming of a brilliant but troubled outsider as he elevated patient case histories to a literary art form by ceaselessly posing the same question: What is it like to be you?

James Byrne’s Our Gorongosa from Gorongosa Media & HHMI Tangled Bank Studios received an honorable mention for the Inspiring Change Award.

Ric Burns' Oliver Sacks: His Own Life (Zeitgeist) documents a world-famous neurologist who was given a death sentence — inoperable cancer — and used his remaining time to reflect on his complicated life and the wonder of the world.

A new film from NOVA and HHMI Tangled Bank Studios documents one of the most ambitious wildlife recovery projects ever: the reintroduction of African wild dogs into Gorongosa.

There is a new NOVA PBS, not-to-be-missed special that takes a look at the important role that predators, such as the African wild dog, play in the health and balance of an ecosystem.

Who let the dogs out? Scientists reintroduce wild canines into a national park in Mozambique in “Nature’s Fear Factor” on a new “Nova.” 9 p.m.

Anchoring the six-title lineup is the premiere of NOVA’s Nature’s Fear Factor on Oct. 14 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Produced by HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, the hour-long film will chart the scientific experiment to bring African wild dogs back to Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park to examine how predators play a crucial role in keeping wild ecosystems in balance.

Ric Burns, director of the film Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, joins Ira to talk about the life and legacy of Oliver Sacks.

“Oliver Sacks: His Own Life,” Ric Burns’ majestic documentary, covers all eight decades of the unconventional physician’s life but is rooted in the final months before his death of cancer in 2015 at the age of 82.

The documentary’s chief virtue, after the very considerable pleasure of getting to spend time in Sacks’s company, is learning how much his personal life rivaled his career in remarkableness.

“His Own Life” is a compassionate, endlessly fascinating testament to that, as well as to the assertion, by one of Sacks’s friends, that the man’s placid acceptance of mortality offered a “master class in dying.” 

Take advantage of this month’s Learning at Home broadcast schedule – great for students engaged in hybrid or distance instruction, and families looking to spend some extra, quality time together!

Neurologist Oliver Sacks devoted his life to treating people with cognitive disorders, often severe ones, and writing eloquently about them in books such as Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. But few knew of the difficulties the kindly, erudite doctor and scientist faced in his own life.

A new documentary explores the fascinating and sometimes troubled life of the famed neurologist.

Ric Burns’s “Oliver Sacks: His Own Life” premiered in Telluride in 2019 in advance of a 2020 release by Zeitgeist Films in association with Kino Lorber. It takes an intimate look at the legendary British neurologist and storyteller who inspired the 1973 film “Awakenings.”

A new documentary, Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, chronicles the late neurologist's efforts to understand perception, memory and consciousness. Sacks spoke to Fresh Air in 2012.

"I’m an inveterate storyteller,” confesses the celebrated neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks at the start of Oliver Sacks: His Own Life.

Premiering on virtual cinema platforms on Sept. 23, “Oliver Sacks: His Own Life” profiles the legendary gay neurologist and storyteller as he looks back on his decades-long battles with depression, homophobia and a hostile medical profession.

Against the backdrop of climate change, the delicate underwater ecology of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands is hurting from declines in otters.

[Oliver Sacks'] wild, unlikely life shed fascinating new light on the human mind, and so will this film.

The film tells the story of how Sacks came into his own in his work—an outsider who ultimately influenced a generation of scientists.

Jeremy Clarkson recommends watching "The Serengeti Rules" to learn about keystone species.

"Inventing Tomorrow" nominated for a Peabody Award 

"The Farthest" ranks 20th on the list of the 50 best Irish films ever made.

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life explores the life and work of the legendary neurologist and storyteller, as he shares intimate details of his battles with drug addiction, homophobia, and a medical establishment that accepted his work only decades after the fact.

You’ve heard the concerns. Kids are losing touch with nature. They don’t get enough outdoor time these days. And it’s not good for their development. But what if they could get the benefits of being out in nature and still bring their smartphones along? It sounds too good to be true. It’s actually an app called Seek, from an organization called iNaturalist.

The story of how life rebounded after the mass extinction of nonavian dinosaurs is told by fossils found in Colorado

This year, scientists gleaned new insight into the day the dinosaur-killing asteroid crashed into Earth 66 million years ago, and the first million years after the impact.

Burns explores Sacks’ life and work as the renowned thinker shares details of his battles with drug addiction, homophobia, and a medical establishment that accepted his work only decades after the fact.

Over the course of her career, Mary has studied the ecosystems of four different rivers. Her work to understand the food webs in those rivers has involved observation and taking field notes, mapping and quantitative observations to identify patterns, developing questions and hypotheses, and then testing her hypotheses with experiments.

Due to over-fishing and dams, wild salmon have declined by 90% in Washington, Oregon and California. That decline has a much broader effect than what might be expected. Salmon need forests for shade, to keep streams cool, and forests need salmon to provide between 25% and 50% of their nutrients, particularly nitrogen essential for protein production.

The documentary film, “Our Gorongosa: A Park for the People,” will have its United States premiere at 8 p.m. on Tuesday on Idaho Public Television.

Ever wondered how life on Earth evolved after a giant asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago? In a special edition of PBS's NOVA, titled "Rise of the Mammals," scientists from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science reveal findings from a major discovery of fossils that help provide a timeline for the first million years of mammal life.

...Sahithi has already earned a top award at an international science fair and was profiled in the documentary Inventing Tomorrow.

For the first time, the researchers were able to establish animals, plants, temperatures and a timeline of when they occurred, providing an overview of the first million years after the mass extinction event to see how the entire ecosystem recovered.

In central Colorado, at a place called Corral Bluffs, there lies an unusual graveyard. The ranks of the dead aren’t filled with people, but animals that lived 66 million years ago. Preserved in hardened concretions of stone lie the remains of turtles, crocodiles, and most of all, mammals that lived in this place during the first million years after the terrible impact that triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs.
 

A remarkable trove of fossils from Colorado has revealed details of how mammals grew larger and plants evolved after the cataclysm that killed the dinosaurs.

Rock formations called concretions hid the fossils inside, like chocolate tucked in a candy shell. Having cracked the code for cracking open fossils, the paleontologists found nearly 1,000 vertebrate remains, including mammal bones, turtle shells and crocodilian skulls. They found 6,000 petrified leaves and other plant parts. They also found 37,000 grains of fossilized pollen.

An unusually rich trove found in Colorado reveals the world in which our mammalian forebears evolved into larger creatures.

The science documentary Rise of the Mammals, a NOVA production by HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, is now available worldwide from PBS International.

The discovery of fossils in Colorado Springs is helping scientists around the world find answers to one of life’s greatest mysteries. Scientists with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science discovered a large collection of fossils that provide details about the evolution of life as we know it. 

Sixty-six million years ago, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs also ushered in the age of the mammals – an age that continues to this day. Scientists have known little about the mammals that survived and flourished in the years after the asteroid impact. Until now.

HUNDREDS OF FOSSILS found in Colorado offer a snapshot of how life was rebounding in the aftermath of the mass extinction that ended the age of dinosaurs, paleontologists report today.

The Corral Bluffs fossils are phenomenal, and what they have to tell us about the Paleocene is just starting to drip out into the published record, but the ancient ecosystem is only one small part of a global story.

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life closely follows the autobiography that Sacks published shortly before his death in 2015. Burns conducted several interviews with Sacks in the months before his death, and he also included interviews with celebrated writers, physicians, friends and family members.

Director Ric Burns documented Sacks' final months for Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

A portrait of the poetic neurologist of 'Awakenings,' shot at the end of his life, takes a tender and thrilling look at the sacred demons that drove him.

Sacks has been featured in films before, but this is the first documentary about his entire life. It covers his writing and medical career, but also his traumatic early-life experiences, rejections from the scientific community, his struggles with his homosexuality, and his preternatural ability for compassion and empathy towards people with a wide range of neurological disorders.

Burns’s documentary is a fitting and moving tribute to a man who never stopped wondering what it was like to be in the head of another sentient being.

Sahithi Pingali, star of 'Inventing Tomorrow,' on how she put the future of her city in her neighbors's hands

Teen STEM students from around the world assemble in Los Angeles seeking scientific solutions to environmental problems in the documentary “Inventing Tomorrow” on a new “POV.” 

No manmade object has traveled as far from Earth as Voyager 1, and its twin is a relatively close second. More than 14 billion and 11 billion miles away, respectively, they gave us unprecedented knowledge of the outer planets of our solar system before making interstellar travel a reality in 2012. This PBS documentary tells their story and shares some of the most breathtaking, unfathomable images that have ever existed.

The director Emer Reynolds’s documentary “The Farthest” describes the work that went into crafting these enduring marvels of mid-70s technology, which are still zooming away. The film is a reminder of the idealism and optimism of the people who worked in the space program over 40 years ago, and it serves as a call to recapture their spirit and ingenuity.

Our Gorongosa, a movie from Tangled Bank Studios so powerful that it brought the audience to tears 

NATURE “The Serengeti Rules” Wednesday, October 9, 8 p.m. ET
Explore some of the most remote and spectacular places on Earth with a pioneering group of scientists who make surprising discoveries that transform human understanding of nature and ecology. Based on a book of the same name.

The Farthest tells the captivating tales of the people and events behind the Voyager, which, a billion years from now, will probably be the only remaining evidence that humanity ever existed.

“[The] Serengeti Rules” ultimately succeeds in conveying the hope it promises, bringing to vivid life an important scientific principle along with the scientists who discovered it. At a time when it is easy to feel disheartened about the state of the environment, that hope is refreshing, and desperately needed."

Growing coffee to restore the rainforest and lift people out of poverty also reinforces Africa’s greatest wildlife restoration initiative.

“The Serengeti Rules” sets itself apart by not only acknowledging the dangers afflicting ecosystems around the world but also presenting a hopeful solution to the problem.

In his remarkable new documentary, the veteran filmmaker Nicolas Brown interviews prominent ecologists who study biodiversity — specifically, how one species can affect an entire ecosystem.

...what sticks with you are the beautiful shots of kelp forests and otters, ponds seen from the bottom up, Africa and South America both threatened and, when “corrected,” healed. That’s the upbeat message that Carroll identifies in the opening moments of the film.

This year's festival includes 10 feature films and 44 shorts. The curated selection focuses on a range of critical environmental issues, such as animal extinction and climate change.

Check out all of the women-directed and co-directed docs airing on “POV’s” upcoming season. Inventing Tomorrow, Directed by Laura Nix, will air July 29, 2019.  

Forget about Marvel. These kids are the real superheroes of the future – the ones who might actually make a difference. It's beyond inspiring to see that high school children, some from real disadvantage, could come up with these ideas.

[The Farthest] is a reminder of the idealism and optimism of the people who worked in the space program over 40 years ago, and serves as a call to recapture their spirit and ingenuity.

The feature-length film attempts to explain how nature works by looking at the importance of the top predator. It follows ecologists and zoologists building off of Paine’s theory that the when a predator is removed, like a starfish in a tide pool, biodiversity collapses.

As of June 4, 2018, Voyager 1 is the most distant man-made object from Earth, being over 13.2 billion miles from the sun, and traveling at a rate of 10 miles per second.  The Farthest tells the complete story of the Voyager mission. More than that, it’s a beautiful and inspiring documentary about man’s fascination with space travel, and the wonderment of what we know awaits us in the cosmos.

The top honor of the festival, the Green Fire Award, is granted to The Serengeti Rules by filmmaker Nicholas Brown. This beautifully shot and poignant film shares the story of a band of young scientists and their time in the most remote and spectacular places on Earth. Driven by their insatiable curiosity about how nature works, they discover a single set of “rules” that govern all life.

"Inventing Tomorrow” takes a personal look at some scientists — not of the accredited adult variety but teenagers, international students working on projects to make things better. They are “the people who can fix it, and who are going to fix it,” one of them says at the film’s opening.

The Coffee County Lannom Memorial Public Library in Tullahoma is the first library in Tennessee to host the Explore Your Backyard Wilderness exhibit, a display designed to motivate children to take their curiosity outside.

JOHNSON CITY — It’s not uncommon to see a white-tailed deer herd or a doe with her fawns crossing from one side of the road to the other. For some kids, that’s as close as they get to Mother Nature, which is a travesty to Maggie Goodman, librarian at the Johnson City Library .“All they do is sit with whatever kind of game they play,” she said. “It’s sensory deprivation. I think this is an important mission, to make sure kids learn how inspiring nature is.”Goodman is taking action with “Backyard Wilderness,” the library’s latest exhibit. It opens for a two-month-long stay at 10 a.m.

The festival will close with another double bill: “Serengeti Rules” and “She Is the Ocean.” “ ‘Serengeti’ is one of the most beautiful, visually stunning documentaries I’ve ever seen,” says Rivers. “They shot in the Serengeti but also in the Aleutian Islands, the Pacific Northwest and Peru, and it’s all about our need to preserve the balance of life on Earth. It’s an extremely hopeful film. ‘She Is the Ocean’ is a wonderful documentary about nine women and their relationship to the ocean, and the second part of a trilogy from director Innesse Biohina.”

A heartening work on climate change came in Nicolas Brown’s The Serengeti Rules. Five largely unknown heroes of modern ecology headed into international wildernesses decades ago, driven by curiosity about how nature functions.

In March, I had the opportunity to attend an early screening of a new IMAX documentary, Backyard Wilderness, that is screening in science centers and other specialty IMAX theaters nationally. The film's central message encourages kids and adults to explore the natural world all around them just outside their door—and disconnect from electronic devices that keep them inside. When I had the opportunity to speak with her after a screening, Susan Todd, the writer, director, and a producer of the film, affirmed her goal for the film was to support outdoor exploration by every child.

A celebration of scientific excellence and an account of a discovery which has ramifications for natural environments the world over, The Serengeti Rules makes for compelling viewing. Based on an acclaimed book by Sean B. Carroll, who appears sporadically in the film as a narrator in one of the film’s less elegant devices, the picture draws together the work of five ecologists and naturalists, working in far-flung locations around the globe.

In Nicolas Brown’s documentary The Serengeti Rules, he follows a group of scientists around the world as they studied different ecosystems to see how nature works. They discovered surprising conclusions in what that led to similar conclusions about life on our planet.

The movie tracks the globe-trotting, eye-opening journeys of five scientists profiled in Sean B. Carroll’s book of the same name. The photography is startling and gorgeous, and even the toughest naysayers will be hard-pressed not to admit that certain animals are essential for the protection of forests, oceans, and even endangered species.

This Earth Day, movies are going green and Backyard Wilderness aims to inspire kids to become better global citizens.

The club of scholars named Neil who are good writers and also telegenic is fairly small, with Neil deGrasse Tyson (see “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey”) sometimes seeming to be its only member. But let’s not overlook Neil Shubin, a paleontologist who makes an appealing guide to our evolutionary history on “Your Inner Fish,” a three-part exploration, based on his books, that begins on Wednesday on PBS.

Many nature films feature exotic creatures in faraway lands -- bat caves in the Yucatan, penguins in Antarctica, lions in the Serengeti. But what about the nature that surrounds us on a daily basis? It is just as wondrous and fascinating, if only we'd take the time to notice what's going on.

A field mouse scurries across the kitchen floor. Birds perch on tree branches just outside the house. Raccoons amble by the driveway, and frogs creep across the windows. The film Backyard Wilderness reminds us that wild animals are often close by—feeding, mating, hunting, taking care of their young—and sometimes in plain view, if we humans just take the time to notice.

There are so many once-in-a-lifetime moments in the new IMAX film, “Backyard Wilderness,” it’s impossible to say which is most powerful. (Like which of your kids do you love the most?!) It might be the scene where a wood duck hatches in its nest, 70 feet up in the cavity of a tree. Or when it leaps down (to the sound of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’”), landing on the leafy forest floor before following its mother to a pond.

A new IMAX movie launching at the Tennessee Aquarium on Friday will highlight wildlife commonly found in the eastern United States. The film, titled "The Wild Around You 3D," tells the story of a fictional girl who is screen-obsessed. The girl is challenged by a school assignment to look near her home for wildlife. The assignment changes the course of her life and shows viewers the scope of nature that can be found in many people's backyards.

Parents need to know that Backyard Wilderness is a nature documentary that dramatizes how meaningful it can be to step away from screens and into the wilderness right outside -- or near -- our homes, particularly for children and teens. Although there's a brief fictional framing story, this is fundamentally a wildlife documentary, with lots of time-lapse footage to educate younger viewers about seasons' impact on animal life cycles and habitats.

It’s not the paradise that germophobes might imagine.

You can see the consequences of this dystopian fan fiction in the video below—the seventh in a series of online films produced by HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, which adapt the stories in my book, I Contain Multitudes.

The word you’re going to see most associated with this film is “inspiring,” and while it’s definitely that in a jump-out-of-your-seat kind of way, the overwhelming sense it instilled in me was one of relief. It felt like this is the cavalry that’s come to save us from ourselves. These extraordinary, driven, eco-compassionate children are cancelling the apocalypse.

Kids create environmentally conscious projects to compete at the International Science and Engineering Fair in Laura Nix’s inspiring doc.

With nearly 50 million people suffering from Alzheimer's disease worldwide, it is more important than ever that we find new treatments and hopefully a cure for this devastating illness. With that goal in mind, nearly 2,000 clinical trials related to Alzheimer's disease have been registered on clinicaltrials.gov, yet there are only five FDA-approved drugs available to patients, and none can halt or reverse the disease.

This month, PBS is airing a documentary called The Gene Doctors that spotlights several emerging gene therapies, including Spark Therapeutics’ Luxturna, a treatment for a rare form of blindness that won a unanimous thumbs-up last week from an advisory panel to the FDA. In addition to tracing the history of Spark’s treatment, the film brings attention to gene therapies for cystic fibrosis, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and an ultra-rare neurologic disease called fatal familial insomnia.

It’s rare for a film to make one swell with pride about something he or she had no direct hand in, but “The Farthest” accomplishes that feat with aplomb. That said, it’s not exactly surprising that Emer Reynolds’ documentary pulls off such an exceptional deed, given that its subject is one of mankind’s greatest achievements: Voyager 1 and 2, the spacecraft that NASA launched in 1977 on a “grand tour” of our solar system’s remote planets, and the vast stretches of interstellar space that lay beyond.

For any believer in humankind’s instinct to transcend boundaries, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes, and the NASA team that produced them, inspire awe. “The Farthest,” a dazzling documentary written and directed by Emer Reynolds, illustrates why. 

You don’t have to be a science geek to love Emer Reynolds’ fascinating documentary about NASA’s landmark Voyager mission that launched two unmanned spacecraft to explore the outer reaches of the solar system. Being given a limited theatrical release in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of the 1977 launch, The Farthest should garner greater appreciative audiences when it airs later this month on PBS.

Launched in August and September 1977, NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft have opened up new worlds for exploration, including Saturn (shown here), Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune.

A leaf that can fly. Bird droppings that walk. A bright flower that becomes a spider. These were just a few of the onscreen marvels at the Washington premiere of the IMAX movie "Amazon Adventure" this week. And for many of the middle and high school science teachers in the audience, the film provoked planning for a school field trip to the theater.

JOHANNESBURG – February 20, 2017 – From the producers of the widely-acclaimed movie “Inside Story” comes a new feature-length film, THE LUCKY SPECIALS, following a guitarist and his friends on their journey to create a new musical sound and catapult their small-time band to the big stage. The Lucky Specials are a cover band in a dusty town in southern Africa. Mandla [Oros Mampofu (Skeem Saam)] is a miner by day and plays lead guitar for The Lucky Specials by night. He dreams of making it big in the music industry.

We know there are micro-pathogens and germs everywhere, even inside us. Some are “good” and others will kill you. So here’s the bad news.

Extinction is a scary word and a scary topic — but it's one that needs talking about. Why? Because it seems to be happening now. Scientists believe Earth is on the verge of its sixth mass extinction, an event that could devastate ecosystems all over the globe. 

Cramming a lot of science into an hour, the project makes good use of computer animation and other graphics to illustrate the K/T Extinction, the asteroid strike that killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago; and the Great Dying, which claimed even more species 250 million years ago. Scientist Sean B. Carroll serves as a guide through the research, enlisting various colleagues in what essentially plays like a jigsaw puzzle, involving theory pieced together from the fossil and geologic record.

We here at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia were lucky enough to host award-winning filmmaker Sonya Pemberton (who wrote/produced/directed the film)--and her crew in 2012, when they were filming segments of the documentary. A version aired in 2013 as a 90-minute film titled "Jabbed: Love, Fear, and Vaccines."  Pemberton interviewed infectious diseases physician, vaccine developer, and College Fellow Paul A. Offit, MD, in our museum, and used images and artifacts from this website, our library, and the Mütter Museum collection.

Moving downward from the shoulder, the arms of Neil Shubin, fish paleontologist, are built like this: one bone, two bones, lots of bones, digits. The same is true for a bird's wing, a leopard's forward leg and the front fins of Tiktaalik, the ancient fish Shubin discovered in arctic Canada that was one of the first to walk on land. 

Ever since Charles Darwin made his way to the Galapagos, we've heard a lot about that fateful moment when some previously water-bound creature pulled itself up from the slowly receding seas, took a breath and began the eons-long march to humanity.

What we didn't know was what that creature looked like and how, specifically, it relates to us.

PBS is bolstering its efforts to woo fans of natural history and science by adding an extra hour to its Wednesday night programming block.

Tonight (April 9), the U.S. pubcaster will premiere the three-part series Your Inner Fish, featuring paleobiologist and author Neil Shubin (pictured above). Produced by Tangled Bank Studios and Windfall Films, the miniseries is based on Shubin’s book of the same name and examines the ways human DNA is similar to shrew-like mammals that existed 165 million years ago.

Ever since Charles Darwin made his way to the Galapagos, we've heard a lot about that fateful moment when some previously water-bound creature pulled itself up from the slowly receding seas, took a breath and began the eons-long march to humanity. What we didn't know was what that creature looked like and how, specifically, it relates to us. Based on the bestselling book of the same name, "Your Inner Fish" is a six-hour, three-part documentary determined to do just that.

The club of scholars named Neil who are good writers and also telegenic is fairly small, with Neil deGrasse Tyson (see “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey”) sometimes seeming to be its only member. But let’s not overlook Neil Shubin, a paleontologist who makes an appealing guide to our evolutionary history on “Your Inner Fish,” a three-part exploration, based on his books, that begins on Wednesday on PBS.

Neil Shubin would like to introduce you to your family tree, the one with roots reaching back more than 3 billion years. In a three-part PBS series debuting Wednesday and based on Shubin's best-selling book, "Your Inner Fish," the paleontologist shares scientific research that connects humans to the early animals that made us what we are today. 

Paleobiologist Neil Shubin digs up the fossils of extinct animals. Now television is bringing those fossils to life.   

Neil H. Shubin's long resume - paleontologist, molecular biologist, dean and professor of anatomy at the University of Chicago - can now be added "television host." Dr. Shubin, 53, who helped discover the 375-million-year-old fish called Tiktaalik, hailed as a missing link between sea and land animals, will preside over "Your Inner Fish," a three-part series on evolution (based on his book of the same title) that makes its debut Wednesday on PBS. 

When the paleobiologist Neil Shubin looks at his fellow humans, he sees ghosts of animals past. The wy we grip with our hands? We can thank our primate forefathers. Our ability to hear so many sounds? Distant ancestors the size of a shrew.  

In his book of the same name, author and paleontologist Neil Shubin posits that the human body as we know it today is the result of 3.5 million years of evolution, and that many of our characteristics can be traced to some rather surprising origins. Now, in a three-part series for PBS, Shubin brings his theories to life. 

Two weeks from today, on April 9th, PBS will air the first of a three-part series adapted from Neil Shubin’s popular book, Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year-History of the Human Body. If you’ve ever wondered why we’re built the way we are – with five fingers on each hand, testes that hang outside our bodies, and backs and knees that leave us vulnerable to slipped discs and torn ligaments – this series will take you on a journey of discovery you won’t soon forget.

Icons of evolution don't come much uglier than Tiktaalik, the land-walking ancient fish from 375 million years ago.

But Tiktaalik was acclaimed as a beautiful scientific discovery when it was announced in 2006 by paleontologist Neil Shubin and his team. The project was partially supported by the National Geographic Society.

Michael Rosenfeld, head of television and film for science specialist prodco Tangled Bank Studios, revealed more about the company’s aims during his keynote session at MIPDoc yesterday (April 6).

Tangled Bank Studios launched out of the philanthropical research organization The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) last November with the aim to produce science content for TV, digital, theatrical, and giant screen. Rosenfeld says the prodco’s content will fill what he regards as a gap in science programming in the U.S. 

The best science television is far from dry and worthy. Science documentary maker Michael Rosenfeld, now head of television and film at Tangled Bank Studios, gave some insights into his company’s work in a MIPDoc keynote today, while also explaining how the studio is keen to support other producers with similar ambitions.

Doctors, scientists and normal geeks have a new studio to look to: Tangled Bank.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has launched the new production company, which will make science documentaries for the mass public and educational purposes.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has launched a new film and TV production company, with a slate of science and documentary projects lined up for US pubcaster PBS. 

Maryland-based Tangled Bank Studios and its production slate are the first fruits of HHMI’s US$60m investment in content production announced last year, when former National Geographic Television president Michael Rosenfeld was hired to lead the new unit as head of television and film.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has launched Tangled Bank Studios as a film-TV production company specializing in science documentaries.

Veteran producer Michael Rosenfeld, who joined the institute last year to head its $60 million documentary initiative, is leading Tangled Bank and told Variety that production is under way on a pair of three-hour TV series that will likely air in 2014 on PBS.

Philanthropic research organization the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has launched Tangled Bank Studios, a production company focused on producing science documentary programs. 

Headed by former National Geographic Television (NGT) president Michael Rosenfeld, the editorially independent company is the cornerstone of the Chevy Chase, Maryland-headquartered non-profit’s US $60 million film and television initiative, and will produce around 10 hours of science programming annually for TV, cinemas and digital media.