A Kingdom of Tea & Strangers

The misty forests above North Vancouver, British Columbia are hallowed ground for mountain biking, a place so harrowing it’s influenced every aspect of the sport for over 30 years. It’s also where Betty Birrell, at age 45, picked up mountain biking after a career as a mountaineer and professional windsurfer. Three decades later, the single mother is a role model for her son, her friends and anyone she’s met along the way – and proof that you’re never too old to send.

By telling the human stories behind the entire value chain that gives life to the Spanish wine with the greatest international projection, ‘Rioja, Land of the Thousand Wines’ portrays a currently blooming wine region underpinned by the talent and the work of the new generations of winemakers that operate side by side with the region’s historic wineries. The film puts the focus on the match between territory and product, wisdom and tradition, and lays a bridge between the origins and the future of Rioja. An immersion into a fascinating world that, through captivating cinematography and careful editing, attempts to find the keys to understanding what Rioja wine is and what makes it so special.

While, all over the world, multiple wild species are threatened, raccoons are displaying an unprecedented expansion. Beneath the innocent and graceful plush exterior hides an unparalleled "survivor" temperament. Omnivorous, curious, intelligent and extremely adaptable, raccoons prove to be very good at overcoming any challenge thrown by humans. But how do these clever creatures manage to survive both in the wild and in urban settings? Set in one summer in Georgia, USA, this film follows a litter of young raccoons from birth to adulthood on Jekyll Island.

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.

Danny Abel’s documentary tells the incredible, all-American story of Jeremiah Heaton and his geographical conquest. It all starts in 2014, when Heaton lays claim to 500,000 acres of desert land between Egypt and Sudan; his initial aim is to establish a kingdom so that his daughter can be made a princess. What follows is media attention, a movie deal with Disney, and a shift in motivation: Heaton decides to create a bonafide nation, with industry, a military, and more.

A raw and honest behind-the-scenes look at the iconic superstar's struggle with a life-altering illness. Serving as a love letter to her fans, this inspirational documentary highlights the music that has guided her life while also showcasing the resilience of the human spirit.

This is the story of Roger, a former pork butcher, who worked for 40 years in the beautiful town of Beaune in Burgundy. Since he retired, he has started a new life as a filmmaker: Roger films only on Super 8. Insects, birds, everything he can find in the countryside are his favorite subjects. His short films have won prizes all over the world, some of them have been shown during the Cannes Film Festival. Josette, his wife and number one fan, happens to work for him from time to time.

After emigrating from his hometown in search of a better life, Chef Gaudencio Ruiz Mateo, defying all possibilities, found success at the highest level of his craft while longing to return home.

An educational documentary spanning two continents, opening up a much-needed debate about traditional African spiritual systems; their cosmologies, ideologies and underlying ethical principles. Modern science no longer refutes the origins of mankind being in Africa and similarities in the cosmological ideologies of African esoteric systems with those found many established world religions today, suggest that it was not only people that migrated, but also concepts and themes that then provided bedrock for the formation of other systems of belief.

Das kreative Universum

A bitter postcard of the town of the Buenos Aires countryside that Argentinean writer Manuel Puig (1932-90) portrayed with singular mastery, based on his own land, a town named General Villegas. Its inhabitants never forgave him. However, a woman, owner of a painful and enigmatic past, will build a bridge between Coronel Vallejos, the town created by Puig, and the real General Villegas, trying to reconcile the place with the writer.

The nuns of the Anglican Benedictine Community at St. Mary's Abbey, West Malling, reflect on their calling and the joys and challenges of their way of life. In this short documentary, directed by Jamie Hughes, the nuns' voices are complemented by images from the life of the Abbey.

November 22, 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Through the perspective of various stakeholders, Patrick Jeudy attempts to trace step by step the progress of this black day in American History.

In a quest to rediscover the spiritual values of his own people, an African filmmaker from the Gourmantche tribe of Burkina Faso visits an Aboriginal band, the Atikamekw of northern Quebec. The resulting documentary is a dialogue between those who divine the future in the sand with those who use snow-encased sweat lodges to reconnect with the spiritual world.

Van Gogh, deux mois et une éternité

A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolse

Lavish documentary in which historian Dr Suzannah Lipscomb unfolds the extraordinary story of the tumultuous love affair between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and asks: was it really love that brought them together – and was it love that tore them apart?

A fresh new look at Lolita, the famous and controversial novel published in 1955 by Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov (1891-1977), a masterpiece of English-language literature that has been constantly misinterpreted by countless readers who have mistakenly turned its young heroine into an erotic icon.

In 1927, filmmaker Oskar Fischinger traveled for three weeks along the side roads between Munich and Berlin, filming frame by frame the people he met along the way and the places he passed through. In 2020, the director did a remake of this film during a month-long walk between Paris and Brest.

Mae West achieved great acclaim in every entertainment medium that existed during her lifetime, spanning eight decades of the 20th century. A full-time actress at seven, a vaudevillian at 14, a dancing sensation at 25, a playwright at 33, a silver screen ingénue at 40, a Vegas nightclub act at 62, a recording artist at 73, a camp icon at 85 - West left no format unconquered. She possessed creative and economic powers unheard of for a female entertainer in the 1930s and still rare today. Though a comedian, West grappled with some of the more complex social issues of the 20th century, including race and class tensions, and imbued even her most salacious plotlines with commentary about gender conformity, societal restrictions and what she perceived as moral hypocrisy. Mae West: Dirty Blonde is the first major documentary film to explore West's life and career, as she "climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong" to become a writer, performer and subversive agitator for social change.