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An atmospheric celebration of the glider, 741 invites viewers to escape their Earth-bound routines and ride the thermals, effortlessly, high above the Shropshire Hills in England’s West Midlands. This short film is a small delight, and uses a split screen to elaborate the process of launching and flying a classic wooden sailplane. As Leonardo da Vinci observed: ‘Once you have tasted flight, you will walk the Earth with your eyes turned forever skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.’
Director and Producer: Tim Orchard
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Ecology and environmental sciences
The tree frog die-off that sparked a global mystery – and revealed a dark truth
15 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
In art, the sublime is a feedback loop, evolving with whatever’s next to threaten us
9 minutes
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Family life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes
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Film and visual culture
Our world has very different contours when a millimetre is blown up to a full screen
8 minutes
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History of technology
Replicating Shakespearean-era printing brings its own dramas and comedy
19 minutes
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Animals and humans
The wild tale of a young animal keeper, an angry tiger and a torn circle net
10 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
Can you see music in this painting? How synaesthesia fuelled Kandinsky’s art
10 minutes
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Astronomy
The remarkable innovations inspired by our need to know the night sky
5 minutes
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Knowledge
Why it takes more than a lifetime to truly understand a single meadow
11 minutes