Elders & Family: The Family Meeting

This feature documentary is a profile of Canadian press tycoon Roy Thomson, whose single-minded attention to business brought him riches, power, and even a baronetcy in England. A native of Timmins, Ontario, Thomson had a tremendous career as publisher, television magnate, financier, and owner of many newspapers, including leading London dailies. The film is a frank study of an equally frank man.

Behind the gates of a palm-tree-lined fantasyland, three residents and one interloper at America’s largest retirement community strive to find happiness.

Why does Old Granny seem less lovable as she ages? 82-year-old Granny lives with her fifth son in a Guangzhou apartment, but spends most of the time by herself. Two of her children are dead, another two have their own families, and a further two divide their time between Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The only connection among members of this family seems to be the annual grave sweeping ceremony.

Three juxtaposing stories taking place in Portugal, Austria and Cuba create an intimate and poetic portrait of the daily lives and struggles of the elderly in an unstable world, seen through the eyes of their grandchildren.

Three college students start a social experiment to prove that reality changes according to the words we use to describe it. Through research, activist actions, and artistic interventions, they analyze the importance of language in the way we understand the world. The documentary includes analysis from more than 20 international experts and leaders in the fields of political communication and information.

Filmed mostly on a Mini DV camera Gavin has thought of a quick way to become successful and be the master of the world but he has to wait for it all to fall into place… he has to wait for the postman to start production documenting the process of being master of the world.

Some experts say the American family isn't working anymore. In this production, seven step families bare their hearts and tell what it takes to make a step family work. A must-see for any step family members.

A documentary that follows Dr. Penny Patterson's current scientific study of Koko, a gorilla who communicates through American Sign Language.

A trip to Pogoniskos, a Greek village in the northern borders of Epirus. Stories about war, but also about fairies. Without a purpose and without an end. Our grandfather was the narrator, while our grandmother took care of us. Their return to their roots made our own journey unique.

«Nel giardino dei suoni» («In The Garden of Sounds») is a touching, poetic exploration of the relationship between mind, body and sound, and a cinematic journey to the borders of communication. Nicola Bellucci tells the extraordinary story of Wolfgang Fasser, a blind musician and soundscape artist who works with severely handicapped children, helping them to find their place in a world not made for them. On his own way into the darkness, Fasser discovered the world of sounds, a parallel universe to our visual world. His far-reaching explorations of sound’s effect on mind and body led him to the field of music therapy.

Having worked as a housekeeper all her life, Justina inherits from her former employer a mansion in the middle of the Argentinian pampas. Under one condition: she must never leave. In this modern fairy tale, Justina and her daughter Alexia will face the challenges of keeping that promise alive.

Five seniors, the eldest is 91 years old, train together in a gym in Rotterdam to keep fit. But the body falters and their environment is getting smaller and smaller. By doing sports, the seniors support each other: origin and social status disappear. The gym fraternizes and gives the elderly unprecedented pleasure. Despite the fanatical sports, the decline is unstoppable. This documentary also shows the seniors alone at home and the confrontational fight against the body that is becoming stiffer, with the realization that that battle is always lost in the long run.

Claes is a pensioner whose greatest wish is to finally make it to the nearby cinema. What if it rains? What if his sweater doesn’t match the shirt he is wearing? It's probably better to stay in the safety of his own home and switch on the television. In the total isolation of his solitary life, and out of an entirely unfounded fear of stepping outside his flat, Claes has turned his tidy home into a prison. This is a film that demonstrates what loneliness can do to a person.

With depth, intimacy, and humor, FLOAT! captures filmmaker Azza Cohen's magnetic grandma’s life-affirming journey learning to swim at 82, inspiring audiences to defy societal expectations of aging and to boldly look forward at every stage.

A documentary about the laying of the first transatlantic telephone line.

An intimate film made in collaboration with the filmmaker's family, Cabbage looks at the complexities of bodily autonomy within an ableist paradigm. Taking place in the months leading up to an international move from Canada back home to Ireland – a country they had to leave a decade prior due to severe cuts in disability services – the film focuses on her brother’s writings using eye tracking technology and her mother’s memories to explore how we shape a sense of self under the pervasive weight of unspoken assumptions and fixed definitions that get placed onto bodies. Dissecting layers of language, agency and power, the film is a subtle examination of how a human life is measured and valued.

Maccaia

Yeon Park orders a time machine on eBay for her father’s birthday, seeing it as an opportunity to discover a few truths about her family’s past. Yeon responds to her father’s private prints through another distribution of the sensible. Fun and intimate, I Bought a Time Machine uses technology like a mediation necessary for communication.

Comme un rayon de soleil sur la peau

A 1980s educational video that teaches the view how to communicate more effectively in the workplace.