A joyful and revealing portrait celebrates the life and legacy of Mel Brooks, tracing his journey from the early days of television comedy to global superstardom as one of Hollywood’s boldest satirists. Through rare footage, candid reflections, and stories of friendship and love, the film shows how Brooks used laughter to confront fear, failure, and the absurdities of the human condition, transforming personal experience into timeless comedy. Spanning two episodes that can be enjoyed together as a single, continuous film, the documentary follows Brooks as his career takes flight, shaped by deep creative partnerships, his Jewish heritage, and an unshakable drive to push boundaries. It is a warm, hilarious, and deeply human portrait of an artist who, for nearly a century, has turned humor into resilience, connection, and joy.
The rainforest is home to more species of plants and animals than any other habitat on the planet. But for humans, life there is not as easy as it looks. Life in the trees requires great skill, ingenuity and sheer bravery. The Matis of Brazil carve 4-metre-long blow-pipes to hunt monkeys - in near total silence. Deep in the Congo forests, Tete defies death by scaling a giant tree using nothing more than a liana vine, and he must then negotiate an angry swarm of bees - all to collect honey for his family. Three children from Venezuela's Piaroa tribe venture deep into the jungle to hunt tarantulas - to toast for lunch! In West Papua the Korowai tribe show-off their engineering skills by building a high-rise home 35 metres up in the tree tops. Most memorable of all, in Brazil we join a unique monitoring flight in search an un-contacted tribe...
Spanning two episodes that can be enjoyed together as a single, continuous film, the documentary follows Brooks as his career takes flight, shaped by deep creative partnerships, his Jewish heritage, and an unshakable drive to push boundaries. It is a warm, hilarious, and deeply human portrait of an artist who, for nearly a century, has turned humor into resilience, connection, and joy.