Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.
An expedition through the mountains of Nepal, during which 9 peaks are climbed.
Charles Dekeukeleire, then a questioning Catholic, was spurred into making this documentary on a pilgrimage with the Catholic Young Workers’ Movement. The director’s approach is one of critical reflection; A film emotional and fervent, even acerbic.
The story of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Originally broadcast on ABC's True Stories in 1993, Feed Them to the Cannibals tells the story of Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. It was the first time cameras were allowed at Sleaze Ball and the Mardi Gras Party.
A cinematic portrait of the homeless population who live permanently in the underground tunnels of New York City.
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
Investigation by the Museum of Walloon Life showing the different stages of the manufacture of rifle barrels using the so-called "Damascus" process, in Nessonvaux in 1925 and 1931
Documentary about filmmaker Jean Grémillon.
In the early ‘70s, founding member of Australian surf magazine Tracks, Albert Falzon, began filming off the North Coast of New South Wales, Hawaii, and Indonesia. He set out to make a film “that was a reflection of the spirit of surfing at the time” and the end result, Morning of the Earth, proved its worth as a vital document of surf culture and a powerful nature film.
There's a mysterious predator lurking in the depths of Australia's wild Southern Ocean, a beast that savagely devoured a great white shark in front of cinematographer David Riggs 11 years ago. Riggs's obsession to find the killer leads him to an aquatic battle zone that's remained hidden until now. Here, killer whales, colossal squid and great white sharks face off in an underwater coliseum where only the fiercest creatures of the marine world survive.
Made in the sunset years of Paul Bowles’ life, the film sees the eccentric author and composer reminisce on how he ended up in Morocco.
One of only two living mammals to lay eggs, the platypus has baffled and inspired the scientific community for hundreds of years. Three years in the making, this stunning natural history film takes us down the East Coast of Australia to the many serenely beautiful habitats of the platypus. Technology specially created for this film captures images from inside the nesting chamber of a wild platypus, and records the extraordinary sounds of the mother suckling her offspring. We watch as they grow from newborns to adulthood. Join renowned documentary makers David Parer and Elizabeth Parer-Cook (Dragons of Galapagos, Wolves of the Sea) on this fascinating journey from the rainforests of Queensland to the frozen mountains of Tasmania, as they reveal new insights into this mysterious creature.
Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.
The Dangers of the Fly is an educational film made by Ernesto Gunche and Eduardo Martínez de la Pera, also responsible for Gaucho Nobility (1915), the biggest blockbuster of Argentinean silent cinema. De la Pera was a talented photographer, always willing to try new gadgets and techniques. This film experiments with microphotography in the style of Jean Comandon's films for Pathé and it is part of a series which included a film about mosquitoes and paludism and another one about cancer, which are considered lost. Flies were a popular subject of silent films and there are more than a dozen titles featuring them in the teens and early twenties.
Presents life in 18th century Spain as the painter Francisco de Goya showed it to us.
This documentary tells the story of the brilliant Italian polymath, artist, sculptor, painter, poet, musician, writer, philosopher, scientist, botanist, geologist, cartographer, mathematician, anatomist, paleontologist, architect, urban planner, engineer, and inventor. The legacy of the brilliant Leonardo (1452-1519) to the world came in many forms: in the breathtaking beauty of The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa; in his rich collection of engravings; and in his notes on original thoughts on astronomy, biology, and physiology.
A pro-Republican propaganda documentary made during the Spanish Civil War. It reports on the demonstration held in Barcelona on December 27, 1937 to commemorate the capture of Teruel by the Republican forces.
A method soldier boys have for amusing themselves in their leisure moments. New comrades are frequently initiated by the old-fashioned sport of tossing in a blanket. The newly arrived recruit, who is the victim of their sport, enjoys himself, perhaps, less than the other participants.
The T.N.P., the Théâtre National Populaire, an important experimental theater directed by Jean Vilar. Franju combines sequences from theatrical performances with documentary images, creating links and confrontations between theater and the real world.