Communities depend on each other for such things as food, clothing, appliances, magazines, automobiles, as well as for many services.
After losing part of her memory in an accident, Leila, a young French woman of Iraqi origin, reconstructs her story by reconnecting with her family and exploring her roots. Through music and cinema, she brings her exiled father's poems to lite, dis-covers the reality of the Middle East, and embarks on a personal quest to understand her identity and find her voice.
Life is about choice. What we eat, what we read, who we elect; every day we make choices that determine how we want to live. But what if these choices are just an illusion? In an era where regulations and red tape rule every industry, where lobby groups and big businesses wield more influence than ever before, our daily choices have become increasingly limited. And with all our options so deliberately handpicked, are we really making a choice at all? Freedom From Choice examines the current state of life and personal choice today. Experts from many different fields offer a frank and startling look at the hidden limitations in our daily lives. Focusing on key areas such as food, medicine, finance, and media, Freedom From Choice provides viewers with a glimpse at the myriad of ways their lives are being dictated and tells us who stands to gain.
Since the enactment of the Anti-Boryokudan Act and Yakuza exclusion ordinances, the number of Yakuza members reduced to less than 60,000. In the past 3 years, about 20,000 members have left from Yakuza organizations. However, just numbers can’t tell you the reality. What are they thinking, how are they living now? The camera zooms in on the Yakuza world. Are there basic human rights for them?
This highly controversial documentary, aired as part of the CBS Reports series, ostensibly covers the growing influence of the LGBT community in San Francisco circa 1979. Critics have rebuked the program for its characterization of the sexual practices of gay men, while organizations such as the Moral Majority referenced it in campaigns against gay rights ordinances.
Somewhere in Myanmar is a forest rich in amber and controlled by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Most of its inhabitants work in a mine, digging the earth night and days in the hope of finding the precious ore that will get them out of poverty. But on top of the excruciating hardship of the work, they also have to fear an attack from the army.
A Losing Game follows three people who ran for office in the 2022 Quebec provincial election, casting a critical eye on its electoral system and the many ways in which it is dysfunctional.
An innovative and charismatic influencer is suddenly exiled from her community of creative partners and colleagues when she states an opinion that she did not know was “unacceptable” in their eyes.
What does it mean to be Black in America in the 21st century? The recently formed Black American film group TNEG™ has set out to elucidate this very question. Hearing from the likes of fine artist Kara Walker and musical artist Flying Lotus, the film is based on a deceptively simple approach -- asking a refined list of black 'specialists' as well as 'uncommon folks' questions about what they think, and more importantly as lead director Arthur Jafa states, 'What they KNOW' -- the film is an unprecedented 'stream of the black consciousness' and a strikingly original and rarefied look at black intellectual and emotional life. What's so unorthodox about this simple approach is that the interviews were recorded separately from the images in the film. What results is a breathtaking, kaleidoscopic look of American black life from the dawn of three original filmmakers.
69, année pandémique
Wissam Charaf traces the recent history and identity of Lebanon through its political campaigns, PR imagery and pop videos.
Nach dem Mord an Theo van Gogh
In the 1968 movement in Paris, Jean-Luc Godard made a 16mm, 3-minute long film, Film-tract No.1968, Le Rouge, in collaboration with French artist Gérard Fromanger. Starting with the shot identifying its title written in red paint on the Le Monde for 31 July 1968, the film shows the process of making Fromanger’s poster image, which is thick red paint flows over a tri-color French flag. —Hye Young Min
Italy’s biggest political party, the Five Star Movement, promotes direct democracy through internet voting. Five Star Movement uses a digital platform named Rousseau, that allows Movement’s members to vote online and express their opinion on various issues. But who governs this data?
Experimental Short Film Documentary made during the social outbreak, follows 2 Deaf people walking through the outbreak in Plaza Dignidad.
A "life without work" - this is the idea propagated by the "Anarchist Pogo Party of Germany" (APPD). In order to spread its unique political concept and to make the background to its activities appear transparent and credible to the voting public, the APPD commissioned a renowned film production company to create a loose mixture of subliminal propaganda and sympathetic trivialization. The film was also to focus on the glorification of the APPD politicians appearing in the election campaign in order to create the basis for a profitable cult of personality. A film that makes it crystal clear, compelling and, of course, intentional that the mob is on its way to power.
In his new film, Erwin Wagenhofer is looking for the good and beautiful in this world.
After delivery of a parcel, on leaving a restaurant, hotel or train, or following an exchange with the customer service department of your telephone operator, the same request: to rate. On a scale from 0 to 10, embellished with colors, or by awarding pretty, playful little stars. A simple, mechanical and painless action for the rater. But behind this harmless gesture lies a brutal management system, operated directly by the customer, without their knowledge. Even more worrying: without knowing it, we are all being rated, to feed the algorithms of opaque companies that claim to be able to predict the future. The film questions this invasion of rating systems, and the consequences of this practice for our individual realities and collective freedoms.
After the World War I, Mussolini's perspective on life is severely altered; once a willful socialist reformer, now obsessed with the idea of power, he founds the National Fascist Party in 1921 and assumes political power in 1922, becoming the Duce, dictator of Italy. His success encourages Hitler to take power in Germany in 1933, opening the dark road to World War II. (Originally released as a two-part miniseries. Includes colorized archival footage.)
After starting a painting business right before the housing crash, a filmmaker drives over 35,000 miles to track down the people who saw it coming and look ahead to the consequences of a decade of secret bank bailouts and 0% interest.