Building the Channel Tunnel

Jun 12, 2019

0h 45m

★ 0.0

Overview

The Channel Tunnel linking Britain with France is one of the seven wonders of the modern world but what did it take to build the longest undersea tunnel ever constructed? We hear from the men and women, who built this engineering marvel. Massive tunnel boring machines gnawed their way through rock and chalk, digging not one tunnel but three; two rail tunnels and a service tunnel. This was a project that would be privately financed; not a penny of public money would be spent on the tunnel. Business would have to put up all the money and take all the risks. This was also a project that was blighted by flood, fire, tragic loss of life and financial bust ups. Today, it stands as an engineering triumph and a testament to what can be achieved when two nations, Britain and France put aside their historic differences and work together.

Genres

Documentary

TV Movie

Production Companies

Windfall Films

Channel 5

National Geographic

Building the Channel Tunnel Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Narrator (voice)

Julian Barratt

Himself

Colin Saxby

Himself

Graham Anderson

Himself

Kevin Milne

Himself

Christian Wolmar

Himself

James Sherwood

Himself

Tim Dunn

Himself

Philippe Vandebrouck

Himself

Graham Fagg

Himself

John Gallagher

Herself

Sarah Chapman

Himself

Ed Bartholomew

In WWII Western Germany, Private David Manning reluctantly leaves behind a mortally wounded fellow soldier and searches for survivors from his platoon, only to learn from commanding officer Captain Pritchett that they have all been killed in action. Despite requesting a discharge on the grounds of mental disability, Manning is promoted to sergeant and assigned to lead a new platoon of young inductees.

10.0

Buddha Wild: Monk in a Hut

Apr 16, 2008

Buddhist monks open up about the joys and challenges of living out the precepts of the Buddha as a full-time vocation. Controversies swirling within modern monastic Buddhism are examined, from celibacy and the role of women to racism and concerns about the environment.

7.7

Faces Places

Jun 28, 2017

Director Agnès Varda and photographer/muralist JR journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.

6.9

La cravate

Feb 5, 2020

Bastien is twenty years old and has been an activist for five years in the main extreme right party. When the presidential campaign begins, he's invited by his superior to commit even further. Initiated into the art of decking himself out like a politician, he starts to dream of a career, but old demons surge forth...

0.0

Michel Foucault par lui-même

Jan 1, 2003

A voyage to the center of the thought of Michel Foucault (1926-1984), a tireless explorer of the margins, a brilliant and atypical thinker, through excerpts from his books and lectures, and the use of images that resonate with them.

7.4

Re-Births

Dec 1, 2017

A documentary film depicting five intimate portraits of migrants who fled their country of origin to seek refuge in France and find a space of freedom where they can fully experience their sexuality and their sexual identity: Giovanna, woman transgender of Colombian origin, Roman, Russian transgender man, Cate, Ugandan lesbian mother, Yi Chen, young Chinese gay man…

7.7

Raphael: The Lord of the Arts

Apr 3, 2017

Raphael: The Lord of the Arts is a documentary about the 15th century Italian Renaissance painter Raphael Sanzio.

6.0

Twenty Years After

Jan 1, 1944

This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.

0.0

21 rue la Boétie

Mar 12, 2017

No overview available.

9.2

Images of the Estado Novo 1937-45

Apr 15, 2016

Resorting on a vast archive material of newsreels, photographs, letters, family videos, fiction movies, diary and popular songs excerpts, the documentary reassesses the legacy of the dictatorial period of Getúlio Vargas (1937-1945). Through the comparison and analysis of these heterogeneous records, produced for different purposes, from political propaganda to family celebration, the film explores the several layers of the political web of the Estado Novo, exposing its external inspirational sources, functionality and contradictions.

10.0

Mes indésirables

Sep 18, 2023

"Before I left today, I almost forgot to answer a lot of e-mails."

6.7

All Quiet on the Western Front

Nov 14, 1979

At the start of World War I, Paul Baumer is a young German patriot, eager to fight. Indoctrinated with propaganda at school, he and his friends eagerly sign up for the army soon after graduation. But when the horrors of war soon become too much to bear, and as his friends die or become gravely wounded, Paul questions the sanity of fighting over a few hundreds yards of war-torn countryside.

0.0

The Polio Crusade

Feb 2, 2009

The film interweaves the personal accounts of polio survivors with the story of an ardent crusader who tirelessly fought on their behalf while scientists raced to eradicate this dreaded disease. Based in part on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky, Features interviews with historians, scientists, polio survivors, and the only surviving scientist from the core research team that developed the Salk vaccine, Julius Youngner.

0.0

A Day in the Life of French Cinema

May 20, 2002

Documentary showing one day of work of over 90 actors and filmmakers from French cinema on the same day. On 27 March 2002, 27 teams filmed actors, directors, producers and technicians at work, from Hawaii to Paris and from New York to Lisbon.

0.0

Franz Kafka's 'The Trial'

Oct 1, 1988

BBC documentary about Franz Kafka played by GREEK TV in 1990.This documentary is one of the ten films of "The Modern World: Ten Great Writers (1988)".

6.5

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

May 27, 2007

Beginning just after the bloody Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn, the story is told through two unique perspectives: Charles Eastman, a young, white-educated Sioux doctor held up as living proof of the alleged success of assimilation, and Sitting Bull the proud Lakota chief whose tribe won the American Indians’ last major victory at Little Big Horn.

6.1

Maison du Bonheur

Aug 17, 2018

When asked to make a documentary about her friend’s mother—a Parisian astrologer named Juliane—the filmmaker sets off for Montmartre with a Bolex to craft a portrait of an infectiously exuberant personality and the pre-war apartment she’s called home for 50 years.

0.0

Big Family: The Story of Bluegrass Music

Aug 30, 2019

Examine the history of bluegrass music, from its origins to its eventual worldwide popularity, and hear from dozens of musicians who explain the ways bluegrass music transcends generational, cultural and geographic boundaries.

7.7

When We Were Kings

Oct 25, 1996

It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.

6.6

RER B

Jun 9, 2017

Alice Diop's enchanting short film, a work of transcendent transformation, shows how the rough lines of Drancy station are immortalized in watercolor by the French artist Benoît Peyrucq. A tribute to a location fraught with historical and contemporary poignancy.