At the heart of the Moroccan High Atlas mountains, water is a resource in short supply. The village of Tizi N'Oucheg has undergone a transformation thanks to Rachid Mandili, who is well-aware that the development of his village depends on access to clean water and on his strong leadership of this project. Mandili rallies all the villagers together and calls upon the knowledge of French and Moroccan scientists to tap water sources, to purify, and reuse waste water for irrigation. The documentary highlights the Berbers' community ties and ingenuity in their dream of independently managing their village water resources. It equally paints a portrait of a man whose initiative and resourcefulness has opened Tizi N'Oucheg up to modernity while still conserving its cultural heritage. Tizi's example presents some of the problems of water access in semi-arid regions and puts forward concrete solutions to these problems.
A look at how climate change affects our environment and what society can do to prevent the demise of endangered species, ecosystems, and native communities across the planet.
Letter from Tokyo is a documentary film that looks at art, culture and politics in Tokyo, Japan. Shot over three months during the summer of 2018, and with a particular focus on grass roots arts initiatives, the use of public space, and queer politics, the film provides a snapshot of Japan’s capital in the run up to the 2020 olympics.
Parents try to understand why their children traveled from Britain to join the Kurdish army in their fight against Isis, in Syria, where they died fighting fighting someone else's war.
These are the future leaders of their communities. Ever wonder what it’s like to walk a day in their shoes? How the world looks through their eyes? We were curious. So, we asked them.
People You May Know follows Charles Kriel, specialist advisor to UK Parliament on disinformation, when he discovers Cambridge Analytica collaborating with a software company creating a microtargeting platform for US churches, targeting vulnerable people - the poor, the grieving, the addicted - to radicalise them for far-right politics. With US 2020 elections coming, Kriel gathers a team of whistleblowers and journalists, and journeys across America with his young family, where he discovers a powerful organisation with ties to the heart of the White House. The man who commissioned CA is a member of the most powerful secret political organisation in the United States, with an agenda to rewrite the Constitution according to Christian law. Going undercover, he risks everything to gain access where no outsider has ever set foot.
This documentary offers a glimpse into the 1997 federal election in the Halifax electoral district. Two strong female politicians, Liberal candidate Mary Clancy and NDP party leader Alexa McDonough, are caught in a tight competition in one of the most contested races in the country. Director Meredith Ralston follows the two women around the campaign trail for weeks, getting inside an election that was often described as “nasty.” Both larger than life and hungry to win, in quieter moments Clancy and McDonough reveal the strains and contradictions of their chosen careers. Why Women Run highlights the accomplishments of women in politics and the problems many women face participating in the political process.
Angela Su’s fictional artist Rosie Leavers is the last remaining person to upload her consciousness to a video game. Contemplating during a pandemic year which also saw people’s resistance movements in many parts of the world, the work pinpoints the uncanny affinities between gaming and warfare strategies. They have mutually informed the infrastructure of both worlds since time immemorial when diplomatic conflicts played out on the battlefield of the 64 squares of a chess board to flight simulation technologies which were adapted to shape gaming experiences as we know it now. When the conflict is between the state and its people, she speculates that gaming strategies empower civilians in resistance movements to counter imperialism through its own operative logic. But once we upload our consciousness, are we able to return to the sensibilities and political motivation that inspired the revolution to begin with?
A film about the importance of heirloom seeds to the agriculture of the world, focusing on seed keepers and activists from around the world.
Mère-Bi is a 2008 documentary film about Annette Mbaye d'Erneville by her son, director Ousmane William Mbaye. The first Senegalese female journalist, she was deeply involved in the development of her country. Both an activist and a non-conformist, she fought for the emancipation of women from the beginning.
Co-founder of Greenpeace and founder of Sea Shepherd, Captain Watson is part pirate, part philosopher in this provocative documentary about a man who will stop at nothing to protect what lies beneath.
As the U.S. planned to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in September 2021, Canadian-Afghan filmmaker and journalist Brishkay Ahmed was filming IN THE RUMBLING BELLY OF MOTHERLAND. Revealing the ongoing dangers for women reporters, and the extraordinary risks they take, this brave film provides an in-depth look into Zan TV, Kabul’s female-led news agency. A professional journalist herself, Ahmed documents both the harrowing and inspiring work of young, female journalists over the course of the two-year lead up to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Following parallel news stories as they unfold – two sets of national elections as well as ongoing U.S.-Taliban peace talks – the film reveals the daily hurdles Afghan female reporters and media staff face, underscoring the existential current events that threaten both Zan TV as a media outlet and the livelihoods of the women at its heart.
After Coal profiles inspiring individuals who are building a new future in the coalfields of eastern Kentucky and South Wales. Meet ex-miners using theater to rebuild community infrastructure, women transforming a former coal board office into an education hub, and young people striving to stay in their home communities. The stories of coalfield residents who must abandon traditional livelihoods illustrate the front lines of the transition away from fossil fuels.
Train “Kyiv-War“ is a full-length documentary film directed by Korniy Gricyuk. The dramatic history of the Kyiv-Kostyantynivka train, with its passengers` unique fates, pain, memories, secrets, hopes, is a history of today Ukraine. Only 12.5 hours away from peaceful Kyiv is Kostyantynivka, a small industrial city in the eastern part of the country, immediately after which the front begins. This entire time people with different characters, social status, political views, and beliefs are traveling on the train side by side. They talk, debate, even quarrel, but speak to each other and go in a common direction. And what`s important, they all want to get to peace. This film is the voice of ordinary people, the search for dialogue and the path to a common future, where everyone’s voice will be heard.
In April 1918, a disease of unknown origin swept across the five continents. In 18 months, millions of lives that had not been taken by the war were swept away by a virus that would cause the worst pandemic in history: the Spanish flu.
Yousef Srouji’s childhood in Palestine wasn’t something that he and his parents spoke of as a family, so when he found a box of his mother’s home videos from the early 2000s, an especially perilous and tumultuous period in the West Bank, the tapes became a means for remembering and comprehending a painful past. The stories she captured illuminate the nature of life in a war zone, and familial bonds that cannot be broken. – Bedatri Choudhury (DocNYC)
Chronicles the modern-day David and Goliath tale amidst North America's housing crisis. During the pandemic, Khaleel Seivwright, a young Toronto carpenter, builds life-saving shelters for unhoused people facing the winter outside. His actions attracted international acclaim but also staunch opposition from the city government, portraying a compelling narrative set against the backdrop of societal challenges and governmental resistance.
A timely film exploring the confrontation between a feisty 92-year-old Scottish widow and her family and a billionaire trying to become the most powerful man in the world.
A promotional film about the U.S. Republican party drafting volunteers on Election Day, encouraging their fellow party members to vote and helping them get to their polling place.
In the aftermath of the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 dead, filmmakers Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman traveled to Parkland and began filming with students who endured gunfire and the parents who lost their children in the crosshairs. "After Parkland" is an intimate chronicle of families as they navigate their way through the unthinkable; reckoning with unexpected loss, journeying through grief, and searching for new meaning.