Face to Face with the Polar Bear

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[edit] General Information

Nature Documentary hosted by Peter Hudson, published by Discovery Channel in 2005 - English narration

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In a remote fjord in Spitzberg, filmmaker Jerome Bouvier spent a year following the incredible destiny of a polar bear family in a rapidly changing environment.

The result is a universal and dramatic tale of survival.

Casting brother and sister twin cubs, this tale focuses on their education and reveals their individual characters: while the young male imitates mother’s seal hunting techniques, his sister plays or rests. After the weaning period, the animals need to fend for themselves and adapt what they’ve learnt to the ever-warmer summers. While the female tries in vain to hunt walruses, her brother successfully hunts for seals resting on drifting icebergs. Reducing her diet to easy-to-catch eider eggs and kelp, the she-bear can't sustain the energy requirements of her immense body. Growing thinner as rapidly as the glaciers, she fasts and finally meets a fatal end. Fortunately, her skilled brother reaches sexual maturity and migrates North to adapt to the changing conditions.

To film this intimate portrait of white giants, filmmaker Jerome BOUVIER has circled around Spitzberg for a year with skidoos, buggies or sailing boats. He endured continuous blinding daylight in these viciously cold areas, with temperatures as low as minus 55 degrees Celsius and winds up to 30 miles per hour. The polar bear is the largest land carnivore and has the reputation of being the only animal that actively hunts humans. Polar bears are the most likely species to kill humans for food, as they assume anything they encounter is potential prey. Nevertheless, not much choice is given to the filmmaker: Jerome BOUVIER and his guides had to venture into the intimacy of these starving giants, relying only on sounds and visual displays to scare off the ever-inquisitive beasts.

Saint Thomas Productions with Canal +, Animal Planet/ Discovery and ZDF

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[edit] Technical Specs

Video Codec: XviD ISO MPEG-4
Video Bitrate: 621 kbps
Video Resolution: 640x352
Video Aspect Ratio: 1.818:1
Frames Per Second: 25.000
Audio Codec: 0x2000 (Dolby AC3) AC3
Audio Bitrate: 192kb/s CBR 44100 Hz
Audio Streams: 2
Audio Languages: english
RunTime Per Part: 51:53.520
Number Of Parts: 1
Part Size: 305 MB
Source: stream media
Encoded by: DocFreak08