8 Minutes to the Ground

“There’s a bus stop I want to photograph.” This may sound like a parody of an esoteric festival film, but Canadian Christopher Herwig’s photography project is entirely in earnest, and likely you will be won over by his passion for this unusual subject within the first five minutes. Soviet architecture of the 1960s and 70s was by and large utilitarian, regimented, and mass-produced. Yet the bus stops Herwig discovers on his journeys criss-crossing the vast former Soviet Bloc are something else entirely: whimsical, eccentric, flamboyantly artistic, audacious, colourful. They speak of individualism and locality, concepts anathema to the Communist doctrine. Herwig wants to know how this came to pass and tracks down some of the original unsung designers, but above all he wants to capture these exceptional roadside way stations on film before they disappear.

A profile of Putin, exploring his complicated relationship with Ukraine. Why does this neighbouring nation threaten his power and identity?

A New Yorker journeys to the jungle in the Darien Gap of Panama to reconnect with an indigenous tribe he met and photographed 20 years ago. Their reunion highlights the profound power of photos and the human connection that transcends cultural barriers.

A portrait of the great theatre actor Evgeniy Lebedev.

The story, told by the survivors, of a group of young men, members of a Uruguayan rugby team, who managed to survive for 72 days, at an altitude of almost 4,000 meters, in the heart of the Andes Mountains, after their plane, en route to Chile, crashed there on October 13, 1972.

The Alps – wild mountains, extreme lives, but also a magical world. This majestic mountain range connects eight countries and reaches heights of up to 4,000 metres above sea level. At a length of 1,200 kilometres, the Alps form both a connecting bridge between western and eastern Europe and a high barrier between southern and central Europe. The mountains act as a mighty water reservoir and continental watershed, feeding innumerable rivers that flow into three different oceans. Their highest peak, Mont Blanc, is surrounded by long, soaring mountains with ice-covered slopes. These great summits are just one reason the so-called “Roof of Europe” continues to fascinate – across the continent and around the world. The incredible diversity of landscapes, flora and fauna makes the Alps a unique natural treasure at the heart of Europe.

Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. This amazing, true-life tale is touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader... to adventure!!

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

Personal stories from civilians, children, soldiers, doctors, the country’s elderly, journalists, religious leaders, and international volunteers - a handful of the millions of people whose lives have been turned upside-down by nine years (and counting) of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

During the Syrian civil war, the district of Yarmouk, home to thousands of Palestinians, became the scene of dramatic and ferocious fighting. Little Palestine (Diary of a Siege) is a film that follows the destiny of civilians during the brutal sieges, imposed by the Syrian regime, that took place in the wake of the battles. With his camera, Abdallah Al-Khatib composes a love song to a place that proudly resists the atrocities of war.

In 1909, two explorers fight to survive after they're left behind while on a Danish expedition in ice-covered Greenland.

A former Catelli pasta factory, located at the confluence of Petite-Patrie, Mile-End and Little Italy, has over time become the refuge of many renowned artists, an important place of creation for contemporary painting. Montrealer. Chance encounters, proximity and exchanges enrich their respective work. But real estate speculation threatens the sustainability of these artists' studios. Fight to create, create to fight: this documentary opens the door to these inspiring places, which will soon no longer be so. A journey into the spirit of creation — despite everything.

A documentary covering Charles de Jaeger and Wynford Vaughan-Thomas's eight-day journey around the world. Travelling solely by British airlines, Jaeger and Thomas visit Rome, Karachi, Singapore, Fiji and Vancouver, amongst other places.

Eldar Ryazanov reads his poetry. An introspective movie on his multifaceted work.

Svitlana, a Russian-speaking Ukrainian, examines the colonised part of her consciousness and tries to find answers to the question of how Soviet totalitarianism and Russification influenced the relationships within her family.

La sconfitta di Trotsky

This lesson in political revelation focuses on the shooting down of the Malaysian passenger jet MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. A meticulous, investigative exposé that lays bare the mechanisms of Russian warfare.

A newborn monkey and its mother struggle to survive within the competitive social hierarchy of the Temple Troop, a dynamic group of monkeys who live in ancient ruins found deep in the storied jungles of South Asia.

On the shores of Jeju Island, a fierce group of South Korean divers fight to save their vanishing culture from looming threats.

Ryevsk, Russia, 1870. Tensions abound in the Karamazov family. Fyodor is a wealthy libertine who holds his purse strings tightly. His four grown sons include Dmitri, the eldest, an elegant officer, always broke and at odds with his father, betrothed to Katya, herself lovely and rich. The other brothers include a sterile aesthete, a factotum who is a bastard, and a monk. Family tensions erupt when Dmitri falls in love with one of his father's mistresses, the coquette Grushenka. Two brothers see Dmitri's jealousy of their father as an opportunity to inherit sooner. Acts of violence lead to the story's conclusion: trials of honor, conscience, forgiveness, and redemption.