Documentary looking at the culture of three motels and their owners who remain untouched by homogenization and corporatism, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Florence, Arizona; and the semi-ghost town of Death Valley Junction, California. Everyone has an unusual story to tell.
Luscious colour photography of the Taj Mahal and a Mediterranean cruise to Port Said.
Two sides of Mysore: down to earth with the field workers and an Indian spectacle for the Maharaja.
This amateur film gives us a fair idea of the opulent life enjoyed by members of the British government in India.
A scenes from a tour of Manipur State and a women's bazaar in Imphal.
Every city has its secrets, but it is probably inside houses, behind their silent walls, where they are most intense and human. The Alabado House was built in 1671 as part of Quito’s colonial Old City, surviving centuries of earthquakes, poverty and decay. Over the past five years, dozens of manual laborers have been working to restore it. But its miraculous beauty conceals a long and tragic history. For it was the oppressed indigenous masses who built the Old City, the largest in Latin America.
A porn star, a bank robber and a Shakespearean actor are some of the subjects of Camp Hollywood, a feature documentary about the residents of a legendary Hollywood hotel. Seen through the eyes of a Canadian comic who's come out to L.A. for the first time, Camp Hollywood is an intimate portrait of the actors, musicians and other transients he meets during his two-month stay.
A local construction worker and a Chinese engineer are assigned to build a bank in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, one of the poorest countries in the world. But time is short and resources are scarce, and there are rumours in the countryside that a new civil war is brewing. And as if all this wasn’t bad enough, their relationships to their wives are falling apart. ‘Eat Bitter’ mirrors the existential and mundane problems of the two men, while an unlikely friendship and mutual trust blossoms between them. However, the chaotic microcosm of the construction site also mirrors China’s contradictory role in 21st century Africa, with the bank itself as the ultimate symbol of money, power and illusion. Director duo Pascale Appora-Gnekindy and Ningyi Sun themselves represent each of the two cultures, and their film has a unique eye for the human fallibility and irony of it all, but also for how we can reach each other despite all our many differences.
In 2007, The Sci-Fi Channel premiered "Ghost Adventures," a raw documentary in which 3 men go to Virginia City, NV and Goldfield, NV on a ghost hunting expedition. Virginia City is rife with macabre lore and reputed to be one of the most haunted cities in America. Ghost Adventures has won a Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary that was given by the New York International Film & Video Festival.
Fresh off the plane and in need of money, two Finnish backpackers find themselves the latest batch of “fresh meat” sent to work as barmaids at the only pub in a remote Australian mining town.
"The Pipeline of the Century -- How Soviet Natural Gas Came to the West" by director Matthias Schmidt shows touching personal memories. The production is a treasure trove of material in which previously unpublished visual material about the construction of the century and its builders can be seen. Writer & Director Matthias Schmidt ; A Co-Production by LOOKSfilm and MDR in Cooperation with ARTE
The iconic Carlyle hotel has been an international destination for a particular jet set as well as a favorite haunt of the most discernible New Yorkers.
Portrait of the Sunshine Hotel, a flop house on the Bowery in New York's skid row. We meet Vic, the desk clerk, who paints watercolours and pastels; Jonesy, a janitor who talks about bedbugs; Bruce, a voluble alcoholic who makes runs for residents, picking up beer or sandwiches for them and sharing his philosophy with us; Vinnie, on methadone, caring for caged birds; Cashmere, a prostitute, the only woman at the hotel; Earl, who works downstairs in the Bowery's last factory, and Mike, the general manager, who talks about the changing face of the Bowery. The film concludes with tourists outside the Sunshine, hearing from Seth Kamil of Big Onion Walking Tours.
A filmmaker and rapper duo revive Michel Gondry’s “Be Kind Rewind” protocols - a set of filmmaking “rules” with which groups of strangers can conceive, shoot, and screen a film in just two and a half hours. Against the grim backdrop of the stringent Shanghai lockdown, the event soon turns into a sanctuary for individuals to forge collective dreams.
This short Traveltalk visit to Chicago looks at some hotels known for their evening entertainment and for the rich and famous people who come to their dining rooms. Featured are the Walnut Room of the Bismarck Hotel, the Ambassador Hotel's Pump Room, and the boardwalk at the Edgewater Beach Hotel.
Folding towels, straightening out sheets, taking bathrobes out of the dryer, stripping beds, cleaning up vomit. Fluffing pillows—making a dent for elegantly turned-up corners—and endless scrubbing, cleaning and clearing up messes. Behind the scenes of a hotel in the Italian Dolomites, the staff do everything they can to serve the guests and prevent complaints. The hotel has four stars, and a fifth is in sight.
This remarkable new documentary explores the story behind one of the most iconic images of the twentieth century: the 1932 photograph of workmen taking their lunch while perched on a girder high above New York City.
A fun tour of 1950s West End with international film star Yoko Tani.
A collection of amateur films made by photographer Roderic Vickers and friends.
The Richardson Olmsted Campus, a former psychiatric center and National Historic Landmark, is seeing new life as it undergoes restoration and adaptation to a modern use.