ARTE Distribution

For 2,000 years, Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been the most illustrated woman in the world. And today, at a time when the patriarchal model is being deconstructed, Mary might still have a lot to tell us...
 

What can we learn about our societies by exploring the representations of a young Jewish girl who became the most famous woman in the world? What was she meant to say? By taking a closer look at the thousand faces she has been given by painters and sculptors over the centuries, the story of the place of women is told. And today, at a time when the patriarchal model is being deconstructed, Mary could have a lot to tell us...

Every week, ARTE REPORTS reviews in images the events that made the headlines. Documentaries on important issues around the world, from human rights to the outcomes of elections.

Discover the history of European peasants, from the 6th century to the present day, in a four-part series that travels the European countryside following the traces of its hidden history, which has long remained unwritten.

The European peasants - an extensive people whose history goes back more than a thousand years and is intertwined with that of the continent. Through four films set across Europe, historians, archaeologists and modern-day peasants evoke the singularities of this epic of peasant communities: centuries of oppression and struggles, solidarity and dreams, and the constant stubbornness to remain "peasants" in spite of everything. Beyond the clichés and myths, we discover the peasants’ vision of the world: a "moral economy" based on sustainable and fair resource management.
Today, as we come to grips with the fragility of our urban civilization, these age-old peasant aspirations raise a question that is more relevant than ever: that of land and its use.

From the shoals and seagrass beds of Zanzibar, Tanzania, to the dunes and lagoons of the Wadden Sea, Germany, take a closer look at the unknown and tumultuous lives of shoreline creatures around the globe as they struggle to survive.
 

Braving the Tides takes us between land and sea where the ceaseless ebb and flow of the water shapes mysterious and spellbinding universes. Sandy, rocky, silty or made of coral; cold or temperate; subjected to strong or weak tidal ranges, each shore is a world of its own, populated with unique species.
 
At the heart of these remarkable environments, we will discover the various strategies animals and plants have developed to survive the periods when the sea washes over everything and those when it brutally disappears. Because, twice a day, the dwellers of the shores must adapt to brutal temperature or oxygen changes, stand firm against the waves, currents or the violent gusts of wind.
 
 
To each shore its heroes, and to each hero its strategy to brave the elements. From the rocky tide pools of the Salish Sea, Canada, to the emerging coral plateaus of Kimberley, Australia; from the shoals and seagrass beds of Zanzibar, Tanzania, to the dunes and lagoons of the Wadden Sea, Germany, we will follow the incredible adventures of the animals of the seashores.
 
You’ll never see shorelines the same way again.

Our brain constantly simplifies reality, opening the door to false logical thought patterns called cognitive biases. These intuitive mechanisms create errors of judgment that affect individual and societal behaviors marketing loves to play with, thus giving birth to fake news.

There is a multitude of biases anchored deep in our brain that leads to errors of perception, evaluation, interpretation... Originally, their function is to allow our brain to save time and energy by developing mental shortcuts. They also facilitate our sociability. In the complexity of our modern world though, this cerebral trick sometimes turns against us, and certain ancestral mechanisms are no longer adapted to the reality of our daily life. Marketing and advertising never stop playing with them; swindlers exploit them for their own benefit; fake news are spread thanks to them. Thus, a better understanding of how it works is a real individual and societal challenge.

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.

Mafias and Banks: two opposite worlds. They share the same taste for luxury, risk, and easy money yet they despise and fear each other and both have connections to the government.

For a long time, criminals robbed banks, ripping them open and emptying their safes. It wasn't until the end of the Second World War that the mafias realized just how much profit they could make from banking institutions, and later from finance.

An incredible investigation following a cry for help that was written in Mandarin, hidden in the instructions for a pregnancy test and purchased in France. This investigation takes us to the very heart of China and its prison factories.

After two cries for help found in the United States in 2012 and in Great Britain in 2019, this is the first time that a missive in Mandarin elaborated and argued will be revealed. A 21st century message in a bottle. This letter, which describes the atrocious functioning of the Chinese prison system, is the result of an extraordinary investigation that crosses borders. It is a hybrid investigation between an investigation to identify the links that make the exploitation of prisoners possible and a quest to get closer to the person who wrote the letter and their fellow prisoners. Our "comfort" is based on a system similar to the one that existed in the United States 150 years ago: slavery.