DW Documentaries

Only 0.3 percent of the Earth's total water supply is suitable for human consumption. Ominously, this precious resource is beginning to shrink. Natural water reservoirs are drying up due to climate change. Glaciologist Daniel Farinotti surveys melting glaciers in the Swiss Alps. If glaciers continue to melt at the current rate, he says, there will be no ice left by the end of the century. The disappearance of glacial meltwater would have fatal consequences. From the heights of the Swiss Alpine glaciers, the documentary travels down to the seafloor, off the coast of Malta. Here, the crew of the German expedition ship "Sonne" wants to track down mysterious freshwater deposits in the Mediterranean. Next up is Peru where, in a bid to counteract the threat of water shortages, work is underway on projects that use ancient Incan methods.

Organized crime in The Netherlands is flourishing in tandem with the cocaine trade. A key witness is shot dead, along with his lawyer. A journalist is murdered in downtown Amsterdam. The drugs mafia earns billions and deploys increasingly brutal tactics. The biggest trial in the history of The Netherlands has been going on since March 2021. In the dock at the Marengo trial: several leading members of the Mocro Mafia accused of murder. The cases highlight the extreme brutality of a criminal network that’s pushing the state to its limits. The reportage accompanies investigators going about their work at the port of Rotterdam, talks to defendants’ lawyers, meets former drugs couriers as well as the journalist Peter R. de Vries, who was later murdered. The story is one of corruption and violence.

After water, tea is the most-consumed beverage in the world. The latest trend for this traditional drink? Sustainable tea, produced affordably and without the use of pesticides, in a climate-neutral way, under fair working conditions. What happened to the tea of our childhood? That’s the question Balts Tomas Kaziliunas and Hannes Saarpuu asked themselves four years ago. Before the fall of the Iron Curtain, Georgia supplied all of Eastern Europe with tea. And no wonder: the climate in that country is ideal for tea cultivation. Tomas and Hannes traveled to Georgia — and stayed. They leased an overgrown tea plantation. It had lain fallow for 30 years, because Georgian tea production collapsed along with the Soviet Union. Now, the two adventurers are building an ecological tea plantation. And anyone can become a "co-farmer" online. Aron Murro, Sven Bock and Leon Franken are also tea lovers. They’ve christened their start-up "KarmaKollektiv." The young founders want to produce tea and t

There are tens of thousands of "children of IS”, whose families pledged allegiance to the self-proclaimed caliphate. They’re now stigmatized, and their existence is not legally recognized in "Post-IS” Iraq. Without identification documents, they have no access to medical care, food aid, or education. This unprecedented investigation gives a voice to these children, the social outcasts of a new Iraq, whom only a handful of NGOs are trying to help. The filmmakers journey to war-torn areas around the Mosul area, Iraqi Kurdistan and Northeastern Syria, to meet a generation who endured the reign of the "Islamic State” and a violent war for liberation, and are now seeking a future as they balance resilience with a desire for revenge.

Organized crime can hold sway over political and economic institutions. Illegal business is growing more profitable every day. Can something be done to take down this global criminal network?

In 2018, filmmaker Andreas Orth interviewed military experts from France, Germany, Russia and the US. He looked at images of a new generation of nuclear weapons, and even filmed in once top-secret former nuclear missile installations. Four years on, in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, how do experts assess the situation? How great is the danger of nuclear weapons being used in the war against Ukraine? "The New Cold War – More Nuclear Weapons in Europe?" is a critical look at current nuclear armament and what it means for Europe.

Intelligence agencies are influencing governments and spying on countries with no regard for the law. And they are able to remain nearly invisible, in the process. Are they the new superpowers? The last time intelligence agencies commanded as much power as they do today was during the Cold War. Technological innovations mean that more sophisticated warfare is now a reality. It is not just about Russia and the USA anymore. We may be entering a new era of unrest.

Since the Islamic Republic of Iran was founded in 1979, there has been a war between Iran, Israel and the US. The war has never been officially declared, and there has been no real reconciliation. Part One of this two-part documentary focuses on the origins of the conflict between Iran and Israel. It began when the Israelis invaded Lebanon to confront a new Lebanese Shiite force backed by Iran: Hezbollah.

Since the Islamic Republic of Iran was founded in 1979, there has been a war between Iran, Israel and the US. The war has never been officially declared, and there has been no real reconciliation. Part Two of this two-part documentary focuses on the period after the first Gulf War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. With US influence dominant in the Middle East, there was an opportunity to settle the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors. When Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin entered into dialogue with the Palestinians, one motive for the rapprochement was to neutralize Iran's influence. The Islamic Republic’s leaders found themselves threatened, and responded by confronting Israel and the US, while secretly making preparations for the development of nuclear weapons.

Not until 1982 was the Nazi mass-murder of the Sinti and Roma people recognized as genocide. Using personal life stories, this film traces the history of Germany's largest national minority.

April 1918. As Europe plunged into WWI, an extremely virulent flu swept across every continent. Wrongly called ‘Spanish Flu,’ it raged for two years, causing the deaths of more than 50 million people before disappearing into oblivion.

The personal data of Internet users is the new gold. Whether it’s cybercriminals, online giants or intelligence agencies - they all want to get their hands on it. That’s because control over this kind of information means power. But how can the private sphere be protected?