GEDEON Programmes – Gedeon Media Group

Creative documentaries

Flagship of the GEDEON MEDIA GROUP, GEDEON Programmes, set up in 1996, has produced all its creative documentaries in the fields of history, science, nature and the environment, art and culture, and the great adventures of the twenty-first century.

Today, the GEDEON Programmes catalogue includes over 900 hours of programs, which have won around 500 awards at international festivals.

Films made in the last few years have revealed the secrets of Chambord Castle’s architecture, likely to have been influenced by Leonardo da Vinci; the highly complex maze-like interior of Mont Saint-Michel; and the Palace of Versailles as conceived by the Sun King, before it was modified by his successors.

The company’s most recent productions feature the sumptuous mosaics and frescos unearthed from the ashes during the latest excavations at Pompeii; the 2000-year history behind the creation of Vatican City, Europe’s smallest state; the correspondence between Biblical texts and archaeological rigor in the quest for the Ark of the Covenant; and the aerial dance of the acrobatic rope access technicians working to stabilize the towers of Notre-Dame.

GEDEON Programmes is more than just a producer of cutting-edge documentaries, particularly when it comes to archaeology. The company also helps fund research, as in the case of the rescue initiative for the Alexandria Lighthouse (Pharos) and the recent DNA analysis of 15 skeletons found at Pompeii.

In 2014, the company won the Rovereto (Italy) International Festival of Archaeological Film special award for its contribution to scientific knowledge, and in 2000 it was awarded the TFC Philanthropy Oscars special jury prize for its support for archaeological field work.

Payerne, Switzerland: Today,Solar Impulse 2, the second single-seater solar aircraft of Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg designed to take up the challenge of the first round-the-world solar flight, without any fuel in 2015, carried out its eighteenth test flight out of the Payerne aerodrome in Switzerland. The plane flew at a high altitude. There will be several other test flights taking place in the coming months in order for this experimental machine to attain certification. They will be followed by training flights of Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg later in the season still from Payerne airfield. The attempt to make the first round-the-world solar-powered flight is scheduled to start in March 2015 from Gulf area. Solar Impulse will fly, in order, over the Arabian Sea, India, Myanmar, China, the Pacific Ocean, the United States, the Atlantic Ocean and Southern Europe or North Africa before closing the loop by returning to the departure point. Landings will be made every few days to change pilots and organize public events for governments, schools and universities.

GEDEON Programmes films

GEDEON Programmes exhibitions

Researchers, explorers, adventurers

“Heroes” of the films made by GEDEON PROGRAMMES

Anne BALDASSARI – Heritage curator and Director of the Musée Picasso from 2005 to 2014

Solenn BARDET – Ethnologist

André BORSCHBERG and Bertrand PICCARD – Founders and environmental campaigners, Solar Impulse Foundation

Pascal BRIOIST – Lecturer in History, Center for Advanced Renaissance Studies (CESR)

Michel BRUNET – Paleoanthropologist, Professor Emeritus, Collège de France

Simon BRYANT – Archaeologist and Research Associate, French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP)

Dany CLEYET-MARREL – Aeronaut, explorer

Philippe CROIZON – Quadriplegic swimmer

Eric CRUBEZY – Professor of Anthropobiology, University of Toulouse

Jean-Pierre DARMON – Honorary Director of Research (archaeology), French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS)

Frédéric DIDIER – Chief Architect of Historical Monuments

Didier DUTHEIL – Paleontologist

Jean-Yves EMPEREUR – Archaeologist, Director of Research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), founder of the Centre for Alexandrian Studies

Jean-Louis ETIENNE – Doctor, explorer, writer

François FARGES – Professor of Mineralogy, French National Museum of Natural History

Laurence DE LA FERRIÈRE – Mountaineer, explorer

Israël FINKELSTEIN – Archaeologist and Biblical scholar

Maud FONTENOY – Yachtswoman

Dominique GENTY – Paleoclimatologist

Nicolas GRIMAL – Historian, archaeologist, Chair in Pharaonic Civilization, Collège de France. Secretary-General of the Advisory Commission for Archaeological Research Abroad, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Francis HALLÉ – Botanist, biologist and dendrologist

Jean-Pierre HOUDIN – Architect

Claude JACQUES – Historian, epigraphist, Director of Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE)

Pierre JUGIE – Heritage curator-general, French National Archives

Michel LE BRIS – Writer

Michel L’HOUR – Heritage curator-general, Director of France’s Underwater Archaeological Research Department (DRASSM)

Alexis LECU – Scientific Director and Chief Veterinary Officer, Paris Zoological Park

Richard MAIRE – Naturalist, geographer and explorer, Director Emeritus of Research, CNRS-Bordeaux Montaigne University

Guiseppe OREFICI – Director of the Italian Centre for Pre-Columbian Archaeological Studies (CISRAP)

Massimo OSANNA – Archaeologist and Director General of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii

Jéromine PASTEUR – Advocate for the Ashaninka Indians

Ernest PIGNON-ERNEST – Painter and visual artist

Philippe POUPON – Yachtsman

Sonia and Alexandre POUSSIN – Travel writers

Thomas RÖMER – Chairman of the Collège de France, holder of the Chair in the Hebrew Bible and its Contexts

Sophie VERHEYDEN – Speleologist and researcher at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences

Philippe VILLENEUVE – Chief Architect of Historical Monuments and of Notre-Dame

Philippe TAQUET – Member of the French Academy of Sciences, Emeritus Professor, French National Museum of Natural History

Evrard WENDENBAUM – Explorer