Vindicating Trump

Guy Debord's analysis of a consumer society.

When the renowned author, orator and journalist Christopher Hitchens was challenged to undergo the brutal interrogation technique known as waterboarding, few would've expected he'd accept such a task - he had previously expressed the position that the controversial procedure would not qualify as torture, and most who'd claim such a thing would not have the courage to test their convictions. Yet, in May 2007, Hitchens did just that - and his experience profoundly impacted both himself and his stance on the matter, prompting him to declare he'd been wrong, and later to publish his 2008 article for Vanity Fair's August issue, simply titled 'Believe Me, It's Torture'.

A video project meant to highlight the human cost in Palestine.

As the crucial question arises of the future succession of the Dalai Lama, we take a look back at the tormented history of the "Land of Snows" which lives under Chinese domination and which remains a geopolitical issue of the first order. A valuable documentary that gives voice to a people that China is trying to permanently silence.

For years, right-wing politicians and pundits have repeatedly criticized the left for playing “the race card” and “the woman card.” This new film turns the tables and takes dead aim at the right’s own longstanding – but rarely discussed – deployment of white-male identity politics in American presidential elections. Ranging from Richard Nixon’s tough-talking, law-and-order campaign in 1968 to Donald Trump’s hyper-macho revival of the same fear-based appeals in 2020, "The Man Card" shows how the right has mobilized dominant ideas about manhood and enacted a deliberate strategy to frame Democrats and liberals as soft, brand the Republican Party as the party of “real men,” and position conservatives as defenders of white male power and authority in the face of transformative demographic change and ongoing struggles for racial, gender, and sexual equality.

When the pandemic hit it highlighted how much Western countries rely on the chip industry. Today Europe, America and China are involved in an intense commercial struggle to dominate this sector that is so strategic for the future. From Taiwan to Shanghai, via Brussels and San Francisco, investigative journalist Nicolas Vescovacci went to meet the most influential players in this microchip war, which is redefining world geopolitics.

Considered for a few years the “country of the future”, Brazil has seen since 2013 a deep disenchantment between the middle and popular classes that culminated with the rise of Jair Bolsonaro to the Presidency in 2018. Enchanted portrays this recent Brazilian history from a homonymous neighborhood of the Rio suburb transfigured by the 2016 Olympics. From Rio to Paris, a political and poetic testimony of Brazil through the eyes of the first generation of the popular class to study abroad.

While much of the world struggles to keep the planet going, a frighteningly large group of American fundamentalist Christians are working to promote the apocalypse. The evangelical movement is convinced that they will be saved when Jesus appears in the state of Israel on horseback and, with a sword raised to heaven, kills the infidels so that the blood reaches the horses’ bridles. Natural fires, corona, wars and crises are evidence that the time is nigh. But for the prophecies to be realized, the state of Israel has to grow stronger, so they provide huge financial support and are so far inside the White House that they help influence US foreign policy.

Here and Elsewhere takes its name from the contrasting footage it shows of the fedayeen and of a French family watching television at home. Originally shot by the Dziga Vertov Group as a film on Palestinian freedom fighters, Godard later reworked the material alongside Anne-Marie Miéville.

We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They do not care. We say we care, but we do nothing, and nothing ever changes. It is normal. Welcome to the post-truth world. How we got to where we are now…

December 1981: Helmut Schmidt, chancellor of the FRG, visits the chairman of the state council of the GDR, Erich Honecker. The experiences with the visit of Willy Brandt in Erfurt in 1970 have warned the state leadership: Euphoria for a federal chancellor is out of the question this time. For December 13th, the protocol plans a visit to Güstrow. The Christmas market, the Barlach memorial, and the cathedral of Güstrow are on the agenda. The enormous machinery of the ministry of state security is set into motion in order to ensure the “safety of the guest”. Erich Mielke: “Never before, such a high effort was necessary as here in Güstrow.” People are temporarily arrested, inhabitants placed under house arrest, Stasi employees dressed up as “visitors of the Christmas market”. And like that, the media was supposed to get presented with a favourable image of the GDR. A reconstruction of three hours of state visit to Güstrow.

January 6, 2021 marks a turning point in U.S. history. The storming of the U.S. Capitol brings the United States to the brink of a political abyss. An angry, armed mob invades the Congress building to prevent Joe Biden from being officially confirmed as the winner of the 59th U.S. election and thus becoming the 46th President of the USA. The lie about Donald Trump's stolen election victory explodes into violence, five people die in the heart of U.S. democracy. The attackers' actions are documented almost completely, as is the helplessness of the security forces. Since then, most of the perpetrators have been identified and charged. But the rift in society continues. Many Republican congressmen remain with Trump, a renewed candidacy for the presidential election in 2024 is still possible. The attack on the U.S. Capitol leaves a shock with all convinced democrats. How could it possibly come this far? This documentary tries to reconstruct and analyze from very different perspectives.

The six-decade transformation of a block of houses, shown by means of artfully featured archival shots, highlights the beauty and sadness of human-made decay. In the blink of an eye 66 years pass by and a savings bank replaces a church.

A documentary special that provides a rare view into the real Charles behind the headlines… told in his own words.

The protests of 1968 had a significant impact on the great cities of the world. But people like to forget that the periphery went through the same social upheavals – Central Switzerland, for example. This is hardly surprising: in the founding cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy, society followed a strict order; tradition, shaped by centuries of Catholic rule, seemed untouchable. But in the 1960s, the local youth could not take these stifling conditions anymore: starting in 1969, resistance broke out across Central Switzerland.

The personal stories lived by the Uncle, the Father and the Son, respectively, form a tragic experience that is drawn along a line in time. This line is comparable to a crease in the pages of the family album, but also to a crack in the walls of the paternal house. It resembles the open wound created when drilling into a mountain, but also a scar in the collective imaginary of a society, where the idea of salvation finds its tragic destiny in the political struggle. What is at the end of that line? Will old war songs be enough to circumvent that destiny?

Michael Moore's view on how the Bush administration allegedly used the tragic events on 9/11 to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

'JFK: Seven Days That Made a President' investigates the seven key days in JFK's life that helped shape his character and have come to define him.

Known as the most liberal U.S. senator and "Border Czar," VP Kamala Harris has a long track record of policy positions; an in-depth look.