The main character is Floyd Redcrow Westerman, Minister of Culture at The International Indian Treaty Council, representing 98 Indian tribes across America.

We also meet other vivid and compelling personalities. Danny Hillis is Vice President at Disney Imagineering and a legendary designer of the first supercomputers. He now dedicates his time to constructing a phenomenal mechanical clock, which is designed to run for 10,000 years.

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, a leading scholar of the modern era, has become world famous for his inspiring lectures and pioneering translations of the Talmud.

Ninety-one year old Frances Adams Moore has spent thirty years of her life in the stillness of Meditation Mount in Ojai, California, preparing for what she believes is the "Age of Transformation". Douglas Lannark is an acclaimed astrologer and expert in the various calendar systems used around the world.

Charles Lawrence/Golden Eagle is a former businessman who was adopted by the Hopi 20 years ago. He is closely connected to the few remaining traditional Hopi Indians and has been their spokesman on many occasions.

The Hopi Indians of northern Arizona believe that their ancestors came from an advanced civilisation, which was destroyed in a global deluge 9,500 years ago. As we approach what they regard as the most critical turning point in the history of mankind - the closing period of the fourth cycle - the Hopi have decided to reveal the story of their creation and their emergence from previous worlds. They pass on to us a warning that if we continue our aggressive and materialistic life style we will eventually set into motion intense conflict and the fulfillment of a host of ancient prophesies.

Clearly the next decades are not a time for the faint of heart, but can we rise to the challenge? According to some we were born to do so. John Major Jenkins - a leading expert in Mesoamerican cosmology - has been researching the mysterious 2012 end-date of the Maya calendar and offers an encouraging poetic vision of humanity's future. The Maya believed, for reasons which are perhaps forever lost - or perhaps soon to be revealed - that we are not faced with the end of the world, but its moment of true creation.

Please see Bente Milton's commentary about her film here