Charcot: Secret Poles

The Scythians, skilled horsemen and nomadic conquerors, built a feared empire in the vast Eurasian steppe between the 9th and 3rd centuries B.C. All that remains are their graves: the Kourganes. In April 1999, a 2400 year-old Scythian tomb was discovered in Kazakhstan. It contained, among other treasures, twelve horses completely harnessed in gold, suggesting high social status.

The Strasbourg cathedral is a stunning edifice, a masterwork of gothic architecture which also expresses the bold ambitions of its creators. With its church spire which rose to a height of 142 meters it became the world’s tallest building and it held that distinction until the 19th century. Who were the master builders of the cathedral? What is the cathedral’s history?

North of Barcelona’s Old Town, in the Eixample district, the organically shaped towers of the Sagrada Família soar into the sky. Inside, visitors are immersed in a floral and botanical world, as if carved in stone. In February 2026, the cross was placed atop the most recently completed main tower—and since then, the Sagrada Família has been the tallest church in the world. Why has it taken over a century to complete Gaudis life’s work? What inspired him during the design phase, and above all: How does one complete a work without its creator? To explore these questions, the film delves into the world’s oldest active construction site and traces its history as well as the most recent architectural decisions. Experts in history and architecture discuss Gaudí and his work. The film also highlights the challenges associated with continuing construction and how the Catalan master’s successors interpreted and implemented this visionary project.

Chambord, the most impressive castle in the Loire Valley, in France, a truly Renaissance treasure, has always been an enigma to generations of historians. Why did King Francis I (1494-1547), who commissioned it, embark on this epic project in the heart of the marshlands in 1519? What significance did he want the castle to have? What role did his friend, Italian genius Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) play? Was he the architect or who was?

The Alhambra is a unique site in the world: a palatial city built between the 13th and 15th centuries by the last of the Muslim kingdoms of Spain. It is the ultimate demonstration of the talents of a people condemned by the Reconquista.

The Amazonian forest has long been considered as virgin of any ancient culture. However, for several decades, researchers have been able to distinguish traces of past human occupation. They estimate that in 1492, at the time of the arrival of the Europeans on the continent, the Amazon counted between 8 and 10 million individuals, soon decimated by the viruses brought from the Old Continent. Today, archaeologists are discovering and studying pre-Columbian ceramic funerary urns decorated with mysterious and complex designs in human and animal forms. The stylistic analysis of these urns has allowed the identification of hundreds of different cultures that populated the Amazon basin. All of them have in common the personification of the animals that they represent, which suggests that they were animist.

A portrait of the inventor of the letterpress, who was a key figure in the history of mankind, but also an enthusiastic inventor, a daring businessman, a tenacious troublemaker: the life of Johannes Gutenberg (circa 1400-68).

What started as a simple tomb became over a 2,000 years history the universal seat of Christendom and is today one of the most visited museum in the world with invaluable collections of Arts, Manuscripts, Maps. Using spectacular 3D modelisation and CGI to give viewers as never before a true understanding of the history of this architectural masterpiece and its extensions, the film will also use animation to tell relevant historical events. This heritage site reveals new untold secrets with the help of historians deciphering the Vatican’s rich archives and manuscripts collection and following the restorations at work (newly discovered frescoes by Raphael) and recent excavations. A story where Religion, Politics, Arts and Science meet to assert religious authority and serve as a spiritual benchmark.

Over the centuries, Mont Saint-Michel, an extraordinary island located in the delta of the Couesnon River, in Normandy, France, a place floating between the sea and the sky, has been a sanctuary, an abbey, a fortress and a prison. But how was this architectural wonder built?

Based on the latest technological and scientific advances, this documentary explores the palace's architectural past to resurrect Louis XIV's vanished Versailles. Versailles was an ongoing building site at the time of Louis XIV and continued to be transformed by its successive occupants later on. The Versailles we know today only vaguely resembles the Versailles of the Sun King. Most of its original features and apartments no longer exist. Thanks to the digitisation of thousands of plans, a team of scientists takes us back in time to explore this forgotten past in a new way, through a large-scale reconstruction project to bring back the Versailles of Louis XIV as he designed it, according to his requirements and dreams.

Combining real footage, archival footage, fiction and 3D modeling, this unseen documentary traces the history of this spectacular and unfinished work.

In Yakoutia, a forgotten province of Siberia, an anthropologist Eric Crubezy has unearthed a strange tomb containing the body of a woman with her eyes covered and clothed in a garment of pearls. Who was she? Why were her sleeves sewn closed at the ends? Princess or shaman? Set up like a detective film, this film documents the scientific investigation into this mysterious woman's identity.

In the 1990s, students at the Université Libre de Bruxelles refused to donate blood for an experiment, for fear of being contaminated by HIV or hepatitis. Paradoxically, this refusal led to a revolutionary advance in the field of medicine. Their professor suggests that they take camel's blood out of the freezer, in which they accidentally discover some strange little antibodies they've never seen before. The faculty scientists take their study a step further and realize that these ultra-resistant molecules, which look like heat-seeking missiles, have astonishing properties, including the ability to sneak into places where others don't go.