Titans of the Ice Age transports viewers to the beautiful and otherworldy frozen landscapes of North America, Europe, and Asia 10,000 years before modern civilization. The big-screen canvas reveals—in spectacular 3D—an ancient world of ice at the dawn of our species, when prehistoric man shared the tundra with majestic woolly beasts. Through dazzling computer-generated imagery, the film shows how prehistoric man survived by hunting giant mammals—from saber-toothed cats and cave bears to dire wolves and woolly mammoths.
Beyond the megafauna living during this epoch, the Ice Age also marks a dynamic chapter in the development of the human spirit, a great test of survival, a "trial by ice" that would compel our ancestors to seek understanding and meaning in nature. These social developments and inventions—art, language, clothing, the taming of fire—born of the Pleistocene, were tools that defined and civilized the human species. The film takes a thoughtful look at the critically important issue of environmental sustainability, adaptation, survival, and extinction, presenting a bigger-picture perspective on the relationship between climate and the Earth’s resources and inhabitants.
Titans of the Ice Age, which is narrated by Christopher Plummer, was shot on location at Yellowstone National Park, the Northern Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Alaska, and features state-of-the-art, high-resolution CGI recreations of extinct Ice Age mammals.
The director, David Clark, will introduce the film and lead a Q&A session following the screening with Dennis Stanford, curator at Natural History.
(2013, 40 min., directed by Dave Clark)
Program subject to change.
Other Connections
This screening is part of the 2013 Environmental Film Festival. For more information, visit www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org
Take a look at a trailer for the film.