Arte - Voyage of the Continents Series 2 (2014) Part 1 The Origins of Africa

– Original title “La Valse des Continents” –

“The Earth's great rhythm permeates everything, and man is caught up in it, in spirit as much as in body. ”

This second series of 5 x 52min tells the animated story of the genesis of our continents. This real waltz of land masses sculptures our landscapes. It will take us this time in Africa and in Americas. Since its formation, 4,55 billion years, our Earth is submitted to strengths of an incredible power. The earth's crust is in perpetual evolution, redrawing indefatigably the world map. Continents assemble and part, victims of collisions and tearings. Perceptible movements through earthquakes, through volcanic raids and through tsunamis. In this “tectonic waltz “of lands and seas, real geologic epic, we follow passionate and fascinating scientists. With them, we travel more than a billion years all over the world to reconstitute the puzzle of our continents and understand the indefatigably sculptured grand landscapes. The continents are not eternally fixed in their majesty. Far from being immutable points of reference, they are born, grow, and finally succumb to the effects of time, like living beings. The heart of our planet creates and moves them in a never-ending journey. The continents come together and separate, victims of collisions and tectonic subduction. Life in the mantle can be perceived through earthquakes and tsunamis. From place to place, volcanic action adds a spectacular, often violent touch to the Earth's surface. Around a core as hot as the sun, the Earth's crust is perpetually evolving and redrawing the map of continents and oceans. This four billion year dynamic is perceptible to people who are trained to see it, people with a third eye the eye of the geologist. To understand it, our eyes must be re-educated by looking at some of nature's lessons offered by the Earth, where we can learn to decipher its grandest creations, in landscapes that are continually being sculpted. Via the epic of continental drift, we travel to all 4 corners of the planet, to meet scientists who are carrying out state-of-the-art research on the most emblematic landscapes of each geological event. With these scientists, and thanks to their work, we discover the sites in a new light – landscapes that we often see but rarely look at closely. The journey also establishes the key reference points of life alongside the geologic time scale - the appearance of life, of plants, of terrestrial life, dinosaurs and Man punctuate the geologic time scale.

Directed by Alexis de Favitski ; Co-Produced by La Compagnie des Taxi-Brousse,CNRS Images and ARTE France in participation with CNC,TFO, Ushuaia TV and Discovery Networks Asia Pacific.

Part 2 Africa Today

The recent African epic is the isolation of the continent into a single entity. For a while, the Tethys Ocean separated Africa from Eurasia, but it, too, disappeared, and Europe and Asia were inevitably flung together, causing repercussions from Gibraltar to Anatolia. The comings and goings with Asia generated what makes the wealth of Arabia today oil. For prospectors, the geological past and field observation are the key to success, and the Tethys was keeping Eurasia out of Africa for a while, but it also disappeared, leaving whale skeletons in the middle of the desert… an El Dorado for paleontologist Francis Duranthon. Finally, the shock with Europe and Asia was inevitable, with repercussions from Gibraltar to Anatolia. Micro phenomena that Philippe Vernant and Yann Klinger read in the meanders of the rock. But what tells the story of Africa today is the opening of a huge rift to the entire eastern part of the continent. Arabia is leaving the continent, as we follow the footsteps of Felicie Korastelev and Jordane Corbeau, then the ongoing opening of Palestine to Mozambique is a real open-air laboratory for Bernard Le Gall. But this rift has not only influenced the geography and climatology of our planet. For Martin Pickford, the rift had its part in the separation of man from the great apes and therefore have allowed us to appear.

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