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The toromiro is a small tree which had grown on the Easter Island for about 35.000 years. Human pressure, linked to important climatic fluctuations and the massive importation of sheep during the 19th century, provoked its extinction. The toromiro was saved by Thor Heyerdahl in 1956, who preserved some seeds. An interdisciplinary program is devoted to its culture and its reintroduction on the island. This program needs some genetic investigations.

Formerly reserved for soldiers, cryptology is now used progressively in the civil and commercial society. The art of encrypting information interests now bankers, internet users and also… the public welfare system. The diffusion of cryptography ways is booming to the rhythm of the development of electronic communications.

Wolfgang Pauli imagined the neutrino in 1936 in order to save the principle of energy conservation. An experiment confirmed its existence 20 years later. Since then, physicists keep on tracking down this particle with more and more sophisticated and expensive means. This film is an investigation which shows three different ways to catch neutrinos.

Near the city of Strasbourg, the Centre for primatology Louis Pasteur is dedicated to the breeding of primates for the pharmaceutical laboratories and also to the study of their behavior.

In order to obtain a circulatory trajectory in a particle accelerator, magnets are used to deviate the electron beam. The beam losts energy which is emitted at the exterior of the accelerator, in a form of light, in a variety of wavelength, going from the infrared to the X-rays: this is the synchrotron radiation. This film recounts the use of the synchrotron radiation, from 1962 to 2000.

Experts who study computer viruses can have different views. Some are able to exterminate them thank to the study of their mechanism. Some are theorists and work on studies linking mathematics, informatics and biology. Some also are fascinated by these strange creations and devote well-information provided websites to them. In each case, viruses arouse passion.

Many types of software, management ones essentially, which are used today, were conceived about twenty years ago. In this time, the limited memory capacities forced computer engineers to code the date into two numbers. On the 1st January of 2000, the numbers 00 will be displayed, succeeding to 99. And then, 00 could mean 1900, and it could have serious consequences. In this film, four computer engineers explain the problems cause, show possible solutions and try to evaluate the cost due to the…

The most ancient metallurgic techniques and the ones from the 2000 ' s present sometimes analogies. Through the reconstitution of these techniques, archaeologists try to understand how metals used to be obtained in the Iron Age.

Presentation of a Sufi Muslim ritual practiced by the Damascus Rifa ' yya, based in Syria. This mystical order is related to its founder, the Sheykh Ahmad b.'Alî al-Rîfâ'î (1118-1183), by a chain of spiritual masters who legitimate the action of the current Caliph.

In the Akungu camp, located in Central African Republic, the community is stunned by the recent death of two young girls, provoked by the consumption of a toxic yam. The days are marked by different events, concerning in particular the familial therapy.

This film shows the living conditions of African immigrates, who live in unfit buildings in Paris. It deals with the serious health problems (saturnism) provoked on the children by the ingestion of lead nitrate contained in the wall paints of the staircase and the apartments.

The Celestial Church of Christ was founded in 1947 in Porto-Novo (Benin). It cares about giving spiritual answers to health needs, psychic security and social insertion of a population desirous of evolving.

Seven women and three men tell us why they started a secret diary in a specific moment of their life.

In Puyuma, a south-east Taiwan village, the chamanes practising socio-cosmical relations are female. Namiko, an almost blind woman, is consulting them.

On the Botel Tobago Island in Taiwan, the first months of the lunar Yami calendar (July-August) are dedicated to buildings and collective festivities of competitive nature. They are punctuated with responsorial songs which can be sung in the Karyag way, that is to say “accompanied by banging hands”.

Nioro du Sahel in Mali has been twined with the town of Limours in France since 1983. In 1983, the twinning committee, with the help of the French Ministry for Cooperation and the Malian government, decided to equip the town with electricity. This report shows the electrification works and also many interviews of Nioro inhabitants, all having a passion with this revolution.

Banda Gbambiya musicians, who live in the North-West of Central African Republic, have a collective musical practice using multiple portative resonators xylophones. The village has its own orchestra composed of four xylophones, which are played during ritual ceremonies or entertainments.

In the Akungu camp, located in the Central African Republic, two special events are shot: in 1992, the mime of the delivery by a young pygmy woman and in 1995, the newborn Masiki's nursing.

De la molécule, assemblage d'atomes, à la particule élémentaire, constituant ultime de la matière, ces quatre films montrent quelques aspects de l'infiniment petit. Les Quarks : ce film d'animation montre les propriétés des quarks, composants des neutrons et des protons. 1989 - 5 minutes Nanomonde : le microscope de proximité (ou microscope à force atomique) permet de visualiser les atomes ou les molécules à la surface d'un matériau. 1995 - 7 minutes En…

Sophora tomomiro is a legendary tree which used to grow abundantly on the Easter Island. This sacred tree, whose wood has an exceptional quality, disappeared from his natural biotope in the 1960 ' s.

Within the European research program "Measuring and Modelling the Dynamic Response of Remote Mountain Lake Ecosystem to Environmental Change", mountain lakes and their fauna are studied with the goal of a better understanding and more effective protection of their ecological system.

“Monde pour Christ” (World for Christ), one of the many new African Churches, based in Benin, is meant to be in the vanguard of the spiritual fight against the evil power, which is opposed to the salvation of the soul, and to the instauration on earth of a pure society, without any sin.

In Chad, palm groves of Borkou are an essential wealth for nomads. In this desert region, a water-table has allowed the development of a palm grove composed of about 1 200 000 date palms, which produce 7 000 tons of dates per year.

Ellipsometry is an optical method which permits to control the development and the properties of thin films. This short film shows an example of technology transfer between a research laboratory and the industry.

This short film shows a method of non-destructive control by ultrasound, developed by the laboratory for Waves and Acoustics, and the SNECMA Company. It uses a time reversal mirror which is presented here by its inventor: Mathias Fink.

Report shot in Vietnam at the occasion of the solar eclipse which took place on the 24th October 1995. A short version of this film (26 ' ) can be found on our catalogue.

The new imaging equipments for medical diagnosis, which can show the depths of the human body are described in their use in hospitals by physicians and scientists in various fields. The Orsay hospital, thanks to a cyclotron, can produce radioactive elements, which, fastened to biological molecules, are detected by a positron camera, which can follow the motions of these tracers in the human body. At Institut Curie, the radioactive molecules injected in the body are tracked by a gamma camera…

Epidemiologic study of a cats population (Felis catus), led at the Claude Bernard University located in Lyon, in order to observe the circulation of the FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus) which causes the same phases that the HIV (human immunodeficiency virus).

This short film shows the researches of the LIMSI (Laboratoire d'informatique pour la mécanique et les sciences de l'ingénieur), concerning the field of speech recognition through three examples.

Presentation of the CNRS Department for Life Sciences: 3 300 researchers explore the mechanisms of the living beings (from the biosphere to the atom) in 361 laboratories.

1969, in Porto-Nevo, located in Dahomay (currently called Benin), at the occasion of diverse rituals accomplished by the king in his palace, his wives execute a series of dances. They form a real court ballet.

In Kérala, located in South India, a tradition of short-lived paints made to communicate with gods is perpetuated from father to son. In this film, Mr. Kurup wanders in houses and in temples to celebrate propitiatory rituals, called Kalam ellettu pattu, painting directly on the floor.

Michel Lorblanchet, a curator of Vayrac museum in France, recounts in this film the story of the “Puy d ' Ilssolud”, a karst located between the Martel and the Gramat causes.

Among the Ekonda of Zaire, the most important moment in a woman's life is undoubtedly the birth of her first child. The young nursing mother, called Walé, returns to her parents where she is confined for 2 to 5 years. Chantal, a young woman living in the village of Ikongo will be coming out of reclusion. She prepares a performance of dances and songs.

In Cape Town, South Africa, the new year is a time when thousands of people put on bright uniforms and make up their faces in black and white. They all come from the "coloured" community, one of the victims of segregation and apartheid. The new year festivals consist in competitions between troupes of "Minstrels", choirs and brass bands. They provide an occasion for tightening community bonds as well as for forgetting about the hardships of ordinary life in South Africa. In 1994, just before…

Study of the pacification behavior among the Tonkean macaques, bred in relative liberty in the Center for primatology of Strasbourg.

A man-made satellite streaks across the starry sky. At his window, a writer contemplates the meaning of this new celestial dancer in the timeless ballet of the universe. He mentions it to a mathematician friend, who tells an exciting story of knowledge assembled through the ages up to the present time.

At the end of the 19th century, E.J. Marey and E. Muybridge separately invented instruments which permit to study the musculoskeletal movements of the big mammals, in particular the horse. Observing the musculoskeletal of small mammals is complicated, because their movements are fastest and their fur hides their limbs. The tachycineradiography, a technique which associates high-speed cinematography to radiography, permits to discover the whole geometry of their skeleton, and to analyze their…

The Institut de Biologie et Chimie des Protéines, a CNRS laboratory associated with the University of Lyon, has developed a software program, ANTHEPROT (ANalyse THEorique des PROTéines), which enables the manipulation and analysis of three-dimensional models of protein structures.

At the occasion of the 5th International Conference dedicated to quasicristals (Avignon, 1995), twelve researchers, physicists, chemists or metallurgists, are interviewed. Four of them are the “discoverers” of the quasicristals : Dan Shechtman (Israel), John Cahn (United States), Ilan Blech (Israel) et Denis Gratias (France).

Study on the tree-frogs behavior (Phyllomedusa bicolor) in their natural environment (the tropical forest of Guyana) and in breeding stock.

The physicist Yves Declais describes an experiment, the aim of which is to demonstrate if the neutrino has a mass. The source of neutrinos is a nuclear power station located at Chooz in the Ardennes (France).

In a pharmaceutical research laboratory, a chemist has found an unknown tablet and has made it analyzed with three different spectroscopic techniques by his colleagues, to determine the molecular structure of its active ingredient.

The observation campaign, organized within the TOGA-COARE international program, from November 1992 to February 1993, studied the ocean-atmosphere system in the western Pacific Ocean. It needed exceptional technological means.

This film shows the restoration of an Osiris statuette (exceptional because of its height), dating from the 25th or 26th Egyptian dynasty. The first operation consists in describing very precisely the exterior aspect of the statuette. Then a cleaning of its surface is done. Finally, a detailed study of its production and its decoration is done.

The caves of Arcy-sur-Cure, in the northern Morvan (France), were dug in the limestone of the Mesozoic Era. They were used as shelters by prehistoric men and excavations, which had been done there, have permitted to discover tracks of a continuous occupation since the middle of the Quaternary Period.

Monduwa, an aka pygmy seer-healer from Mongoumba, in Central African Republic, gives in emergency a consultation to a young girl, “hospitalized” in his own home, suffering from heart disease.

In the Northern and Eastern regions of Chad, in Zarawa, Bideyat and Goranes breeders groups, blacksmiths are considered as a lower caste. They practice their art and also other artisanal techniques (wood and leather work), even music.

Researchers at the Jacques Monod Institute (Paris) are studying the peptides in the venom of the tree frog Phillomedusa bicolor, searching for new hormones in order to design synthetic molecules for therapeutic uses.

In June 1994, inhabitants of the pygmy camp of Akungu, in Central African Republic, suffer from misfortunes. Diverse rituals are practiced in order to bring back well-being and concord.