Earth

The documentary follows one year from pole to pole and centres on three families: a polar bear and her cubs on melting ice in the Arctic, a herd of elephants looking for water through drought in Africa, and a humpback whale migrating with her calf. The story follows the order of the seasons, and each family meets a different form of the same problem, which is food changing its address. The footage comes from the Planet Earth series; the same team recut the material for cinema and added new sequences. The polar bear section is the most cited part of the series, and here it can be watched without interruption. Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield directed, for BBC Worldwide and Greenlight Media. The versions differ: the first was narrated by Patrick Stewart, the American release by James Earl Jones. It screened at the Vaduz Film Festival on 14 July 2007, opened in the United States on Earth Day, 22 April 2009, and became the first Disneynature release. Against a budget of forty-seven million dollars it took a hundred and nine million worldwide. Who it is for: anyone who likes nature documentary and images made for a large screen. Who it is not for: anyone after information. The narration is emotive, animals are given names and intentions, and anyone who watched the series will recognise most of the footage.