Skin of the Earth

Eleven major film makers from Europe, America and Asia talk about Akira Kurosawa and discover surprising influences on their own work.

When a devastating famine descended on Soviet Russia in 1921, it was the worst natural disaster in Europe since the Black Plague in the Middle Ages. Examine Herbert Hoover’s American Relief Administration—an operation hailed for its efficiency, grit and generosity. By the summer of 1922, American kitchens were feeding nearly 11 million Soviet citizens a day.

A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

From the Los Angeles Times and Pulitzer Prize-finalist Rosanna Xia, OUT OF PLAIN SIGHT is a cinematic exposé of an environmental disaster lurking just off the coast of Southern California. Not far from Catalina Island, aboard one of the most-advanced research ships in the world, David Valentine discovered a corroded barrel on the seafloor that gave him chills. The full environmental horror sharpens into greater clarity once he calls Xia, who pieces together a shocking revelation: In the years after World War II, as many as half a million barrels of toxic waste had been quietly dumped into the ocean – and the consequences continue to haunt the world today.

Passionate about ocean life, a filmmaker sets out to document the harm that humans do to marine species — and uncovers an alarming global conspiracy.

This one hour documentary, presented by former Olympian Jonathan Edwards, dissects the story of St Paul, and aimed to reveal the background to the story of Paul.

Der Wind - Motor des Klimawandels

Ben Fogle spends a week living inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, gaining privileged access to the doomed Control Room 4 where the disaster first began to unfold.

A look at the unusual process used in the making of the film Shortbus (2006) featuring interviews, behind the scenes footage and clips from the feature film. Director John Cameron Mitchell starts with the concept of using real sex in a film with a positive message. The cast of unknowns is selected from homemade audition tapes and then a callback audition workshop. More acting workshops are used to develop the characters and script. The project overcomes a number of obstacles and the rest of the film's development is followed up until its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

This documentary film focuses on the animal life that survives in this harsh arctic climates at the edge of the ice - from the simple algae to narwhals, polar bears, sea birds, seals, whales and walruses.

Documentary about finches of the Galápagos Islands.

A program made for Kultura on the life and career of Larisa Shepitko.

A program on the relationship between the filmmaking couple Larisa Sheptiko and Elim Klimov.

In times of global ecological crisis, Costa Rica seems to be an oasis for its rich biodiversity. Nacho traces a route to learn about agroecological projects, discovering what the indigenous communities call "good living" Could this be the solution?

In 1986, Billy Joel released the album titled The Bridge on July 29th on Columbia Records. Go behind the scenes with Billy and learn about the songwriting and recording process behind the album.

A mother determines to see her son faced with autism and depression overcome challenges, along with support from family, the community and teachers.

Jaime Otero, a passionate Galician farmer, and his companions Sérgio and Diogo, embark on an odyssey across the Iberian Peninsula, carrying with them the revolutionary philosophy of syntropic farming. This practice is inspired by the forest to produce food while regenerating ecosystems. Their adventure takes them through regions as diverse as Galicia to the sea of plastics in Almería, confronting us with the severe environmental crisis that conventional agricultural practices are leading us towards. The collection and dispersal of seeds becomes the main tool for regeneration and the backbone of this road movie,in which countless people who are also looking for a paradigm shift are immersed in. . Full of passion and hope, these three pioneers invite us to relearn and to look at nature with new eyes. Ultimately, they show us that our ability to transform our current reality will require a steady and collective effort.

'Consumed' is a cinematic journey through the landscapes, mines, factories, and shipyards of Chinese production. Blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, a single worker narrates his story to the rhythm of industrial machinery. The film reveals the hidden world behind our everyday objects, re-framing complex supply chains that feed global desires as a narrative performance played out at a global scale, and investigating the place of the individual within this context.

A group of Argentines try to reach Lago Escondido, in the south of their own country, where the British billionaire Joe Lewis has created a fiefdom of twelve thousand hectares that functions as a parallel state. This documentary narrates the Seventh March to Lago Escondido in 2023, with a camera that records the events directly, but also investigates dark geopolitical interests, business/judicial lobbies and the complicity of some sectors of Argentine politics with foreign interests.

Documentary which follows the construction of a trailblazing 36,000-tonne steel structure to entomb the ruins of the nuclear power plant destroyed in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.