Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 30, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
When a gigantic asteroid crashed onto the Earth’s surface five billion years ago, the impact was so enormous that the Earth’s angle of inclination shifted. And it was precisely this cosmic accident that was crucial to the emergence of life on Earth. Without this change in the Earth’s tilt, there would probably be neither the diversity of landscapes nor the seasons or the contrasts between heat and cold: the prerequisite for life to emerge on Earth at all.
In EARTH, we set off on a journey around the globe. Along the way, we encounter three animal mothers fighting for their young to survive. With the first rays of spring sunshine, a polar bear family awakens in the Arctic: will they manage to find food before the ice they depend on melts?
At the other end of the world, in the heart of the Kalahari Desert, a female elephant and her calf try to reach the life-saving waterhole after a perilous journey.
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On the final stage of our journey, we follow a humpback whale mother. She must manage to bring her young safely from the equator to the Arctic – a distance of 6000 kilometres. No film has previously succeeded in capturing this natural spectacle in all its epic diversity while telling the lives of its leading characters – polar bears, elephants and humpback whales – so movingly.
EARTH by Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield is the most elaborate and expensive nature documentary of all time to date. The film took five years to produce. More than 40 camera crews shot 1,000 hours of footage in 26 countries at over 200 locations, some of which had never been visited before.
The result, the feature film EARTH, delighted critics and audiences alike. Since its cinema release, more than 3.5 million viewers have seen the film, which is considered Europe’s most successful nature documentary of the past ten years.
Further Links:
- Film Website
