Anita Chitaya has a gift: she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and maybe she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home in Malawi from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real. Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, she meets climate sceptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions that shape the USA: from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, and to the American exceptionalism that remains a part of the culture. It will take all her skill and experience to help Americans recognise, and free themselves from, a logic that is already destroying the Earth.
A documentary on the life of the youth in post-Independence India.
Divided into three parts — The Awakening, The Struggle, and Freedom — this is a biographical film on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India. Relying on Nehru's writings and speeches, the film traces the evolution of Nehru from his birth through his life. It also deals with the effect of history on Nehru and in turn his impact on the world.
A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.
Somi is pregnant with her second child. A girl, she hopes. Together with her husband she prepares for this new phase of their parenthood. It means that their son has to go to school, but as an ex-Naxalite that is tough to achieve in contemporary India, where people like them are third-rate citizens. They lack the certificates and an opaque bureaucratic process doesn't help. Directors Isabella Rinaldi, Cristina Hanes and Arya Rothe of the NoCut Film Collective concentrate on Somi's close family ties, painting a portrait of ex-Naxalites in India. Once, Somi and her husband were communist rebels fighting for the rights of Indian tribes. However, to safeguard their family's welfare, they surrendered to the government in exchange for marginal compensation and simple accommodation.
Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.
A film that captures the portraits and stories of extraordinary women around the world who are coming together to heal the injustices against the earth, weaves together poetry, music, art, and stunning scenery to create a hopeful and collective story that inspires us to work for the earth. The list of impassioned, indefatigable female environmental activists featured in this film includes Winona LaDuke, a Native American who has championed the use of solar and wind power on reservations; Theo Colborn, head of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, who fights against toxic chemicals in our water supplies; Beverly Grant, who’s created a vibrant farmer’s market in a black neighborhood of Denver, Colo.; Dana Miller, who spearheads an “urban agriculture movement” in the same city; and Vandana Shiva, who champions organic farming in India.
Hundreds of thousands of Indian men and women – indigenous inhabitants and landless farmers – demand their right to existence by making a 400 kilometre protest march from Gwalior to Delhi. How can one fight for one’s rights without using violence? With such an important contemporary question, the film spreads far beyond the borders of India. It shows the multiple facets of this imposing protest march and focuses as well on the daily realities of these proud people.
When the Cows Come Home introduces audiences to Tilly and Maggie, a pair of cows that musician, journalist, artist and cow whisperer, Andrew Johnstone has befriended and subsequently saved from slaughter. The garrulous herdsman is enthusiastic to expound his views on animal husbandry, bovine communication and the vagaries of life in general, before the film walks us back through the events that have shaped the singular farmer-philosopher. From personal family tragedy to warring with Catholic school authorities, innovating in Hamilton’s nascent music scene to creating guerrilla art installations; Johnstone’s life has had a truly idiosyncratic trajectory. Mental health issues may have seen him retreat to life on the farm, but the film makes clear its subject’s restless inquisitiveness is far from being put out to pasture.
As the Cold War bristles with menace in the 60s, the youth at Kielder Workman’s Club celebrate free time with an American dance called the ‘Twist’. But it’s the Faustian pact with industry this brilliant travelogue focuses on first as it maps the path of the River Tyne. The sounds of heavy machinery and graft pitch us into Newcastle’s shipyards and collieries, whilst drugs spin off a machine called Bliss in Winthrop Laboratories’ production-slick war against pain.
Jonas Elrod woke up one day with the ability to see and hear angels, demons and ghosts. Filmed over the course of three years, this documentary follows Jonas and his girlfriend as they try to understand the phenomenon.
Documentary about the photo session for the photobook "Castella", filmed in Portugal.
The Kingdom of Survival explores modern skepticism in America, challenges the status quo and uncovers provocative links between survivalist philosophy, ecumenical spirituality, radical political theory, and outlaw culture. The audience is invited into a thoughtful conversation with the likes of Prof. Noam Chomsky, Dr. Mark Mirabello, Ramsey Kanaan, and the riveting final interview with beloved author, Joe Bageant. These unique thought leaders cast a rare shadow of doubt over our most blindly accepted American traditions.
The Kumbh Mela is a great roving Hindu spiritual festival that has moved around India for more than four thousand years, erecting temporary cities along the Ganges River.
Documentary exploring economic and environmental connections between farmers in Latin America, coffee drinkers in the U.S., and the fate of migratory songbirds throughout the Americas. Illustrates how coffee drinkers in this and other developed countries hold in their hands the fate of farm families, farming communities, and entire ecosystems in coffee-growing regions worldwide.
A jetliner spans the miles, sheering through clouds to open sky and scenic vistas of the provinces below. Glimpses of town and country, of people of many ethnic origins, of a resourceful and industrious nation - impressions it would take days and weeks to gather at first hand - are brought to you in this vivid 1800-kilometer panorama.
Amateur film of a road trip through northeastern India, showing traditional dances and a gigantic flower float.
Peter Dunning is a rugged individualist in the extreme, a hard-drinking loner and former artist who has burned bridges with his wives and children and whose only company, even on harsh winter nights, are the sheep, cows, and pigs he tends on his Vermont farm. Peter is also one of the most complicated, sympathetic documentary subjects to come along in some time, a product of the 1960s counterculture whose poetic idealism has since soured. For all his candor, he slips into drunken self-destructive habits, cursing the splendors of a pastoral landscape that he has spent decades nurturing.
A cinematic portrait of farmer and writer Wendell Berry. Through his eyes, we see both the changing landscapes of rural America in the era of industrial agriculture and the redemptive beauty in taking the unworn path.
After the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, widowed women struggled to receive aid due to their social status. Following the story of Mrs. Manjula along with many other women from Tamil Nadu, the challenges faced by millions of widows across the country are illuminated. From being ostracized to denied basic rights and economic opportunities, widows in India endure a cycle of discrimination and marginalization. “Kalangarai” meaning "lighthouse" in Tamil, is an organization dedicated to empowering women through initiatives such as self-help groups and educational programs. Throughout the film, "Lighthouse" illustrates the emotional journeys and resilience of these women, as well as the active change that Kalangarai strives to achieve. This documentary urges global awareness and support for widowed women’s rights, as the women’s struggles depict the intersectionality of gender, poverty, and social injustice.