Adventurer, filmmaker, inventor, author, unlikely celebrity and conservationist: For over four decades, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his explorations under the ocean became synonymous with a love of science and the natural world. As he learned to protect the environment, he brought the whole world with him, sounding alarms more than 50 years ago about the warming seas and our planet’s vulnerability. In BECOMING COUSTEAU, from National Geographic Documentary Films, two-time Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus takes an inside look at Cousteau and his life, his iconic films and inventions, and the experiences that made him the 20th century’s most unique and renowned environmental voice — and the man who inspired generations to protect the Earth.
During a 9-month trip, the Cousteau team will explore the longest river on the planet: the Nile. It flows north to the Mediterranean, crosses half a continent and over 7000 years of history. On its shores, civilizations have built marvels of architecture. Kingdoms rose and then fell, each person's destiny still intimately linked to that of the river... without anyone having mastered it. The Calypso team studies life around the Nile, which has remained almost unchanged since the time of the pharaohs.
The myth of Atlantis has only one source: Plato. He described, some 2,500 years ago, a country overflowing with wealth, located beyond the Pillars of Hercules, whose capital would have been destroyed by an earthquake, then engulfed in the depths of the sea. Following a miraculous aerial photo, Commander Cousteau finds himself on the trail of the lost civilization of the legend of Atlantis. Near the island of Dia, the team makes an extraordinary discovery…
A breathtaking trip down Earth's longest river reveals its fabled past and complex, challenging present. Wild hippopotami, the mysteries of the deadly tsetse fly, the ancient Dinka and Shilluk African tribes and the Sudd- a swamp as large as England - are among the natural wonders encountered along the trek from Uganda to Khartoum to Egypt, before concluding at the manmade wonders of the Nile, the Jonglei Canal and the Aswan High Dam.
In a fitting farewell, Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin's last documentary goes below the surface of Australia's eastern reef, where some of the planet's most dangerous animals reside. Joining Irwin is Philippe Cousteau, grandson of pioneering oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. Together, the two explorers run up against venomous sea snakes, enormous sharks and saltwater crocodiles in their search for the most fearsome creatures of the deep.
On his ship "Calypso," as well as in a submarine, Jacques Cousteau and his crew sail from South America and travel to Antarctica. They explore islands, reefs, icebergs, fossils, active volcanic craters, and creatures of the ocean never before seen. This voyage took place in 1975, and Captain Cousteau became one of the first explorers ever to dive beneath the waters of the frozen South Pole.