The drought in the American West is predicted to be the worst in 1,000 years. Join five Academy Award-winning filmmakers as they explore the environmental crisis of our time and how to fix it before it's too late.
The alien abduction phenomenon, told by those who experienced it, with the weight of a Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard psychiatrist at their back.
An account of the life and work of the charismatic Spanish writer Terenci Moix (1942-2003).
This is the untold story behind History, a well-kept secret behind the world-wide icon: Nelson Mandela's release was a Plot for Peace. For the first time, heads of state, generals, diplomats, master spies and anti-apartheid fighters reveal how Africa's front line states helped end apartheid. Their improbable key to Mandela's prison cell was a mysterious French businessman, dubbed "Monsieur Jacques" in classified correspondence. His trade secret was trust
Ever since 17-year-old Rachel Levy, an Israeli, was killed four years ago in Jerusalem by a Palestinian suicide bomber, her mother Abigail has found hardly a moment's peace. Levy's killer was Ayat al-Akhras, also 17, a schoolgirl from a Palestinian refugee camp several miles away. The two young women looked unbelievably alike. TO DIE IN JERUSALEM unabashedly explores the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the personal loss of two families. The film's most revealing moment is in an emotionally charged meeting between the mothers of the girls, presenting the most current reflection of the conflict as seen thru their eyes.
Drawing from ancient knowledge and cutting edge science, Symphony of the Soil is an artistic exploration of the miraculous substance soil. By understanding the elaborate relationships and mutuality between soil, water, the atmosphere, plants and animals, we come to appreciate the complex and dynamic nature of this precious resource. The film also examines our human relationship with soil, the use and misuse of soil in agriculture, deforestation and development, and the latest scientific research on soil’s key role in ameliorating the most challenging environmental issues of our time. Filmed on four continents, featuring esteemed scientists and working farmers and ranchers, Symphony of the Soil is an intriguing presentation that highlights possibilities of healthy soil creating healthy plants creating healthy humans living on a healthy planet.
Mid-August in Paris (the title is a date: August 15) in a sunny, quiet apartment a young woman talks, thinks, reflects about herself, everyday life and little events in a long, uninterrupted monologue. The camera pictures her and her gestures in long, fixed shots moving around the rooms, the space, the light and shadows of a summer day.
Ten women in Canada talk about being lesbian in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s: discovering the pulp fiction of the day about women in love, their own first affairs, the pain of breaking up, frequenting gay bars, facing police raids, men's responses, and the etiquette of butch and femme roles. Interspersed among the interviews and archival footage are four dramatized chapters from a pulp novel, "Forbidden Love".
The history of the irreverent "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" and the content battles it fought with its television network.
Out of Print, narrated by Meryl Streep, draws us into the topsy-turvy world of words, illuminating the turbulent and exciting journey from the book through the digital revolution. Jeff Bezos, Ray Bradbury, Scott Turow, Jeffrey Toobin, parents, students, educators, scientists – all highlight how this revolution is changing everything about the printed word – and changing us.
In 1977, when she was four years old, Albertina Carri's parents vanished without a trace, victims of Argentina's brutal military junta. In this fresh and politically daring film, the young Argentinian filmmaker attempts to unravel the mystery, piecing together her memories and fantasies in a quest to understand her parents' untimely fate.
Arab-American filmmaker Yumna Al-Arashi embraces the rhythmic rituals that have run alongside Islamic tradition throughout the centuries in this surreal and poetic short film. Piecing together old and new, Al-Rashi's dream-like imagery breathes fresh air to a subject hardly seen in positive light.
A documentary about Genie, who spent the first thirteen years of her life imprisoned in her bedroom by her father, with her arms and legs immobilized.
O AMOR NATURAL is a documentary film about the erotic poetry of one of the greatest Latin American poets of the 20th century, the Brazilian Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987). The erotic poems of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, a household name in Brazil, remained unpublished during his lifetime, as he feared they would be deemed pornographic. In this celebration of his poetry and sensual vision, elderly residents of Rio read his poems and comment on their graphic, voluptuous imagery with tremendous candor and enthusiasm.
Celebrated filmmaker and photographer Cheryl Dunn turns her lens on the pioneers and masters of New York street photography. Dunn profiles artists spanning six decades, including Bruce Davidson, Mary Ellen Mark, Jill Freedman, Jeff Mermelstein and Martha Cooper, revealing that these shooters are as colourful and unique as the subjects they’ve relentlessly documented. Everybody Street explores the passion that compelled Freedman to spend years riding in squad cars during the most violent years in the city; Bruce Gilden’s drive to thrust his camera in people’s faces to capture a moment; and Martha Cooper’s dedication to chasing graffiti on passing subway cars in the Bronx. The film is a definitive look at the iconic visionaries of this often imitated art form.
In 1970, hundreds of hippies followed Stephen Gaskin on a journey from San Francisco to Tennessee, where they founded a legendary commune known as the Farm. Within this self-sustaining society based on non-violence, vegetarianism and respect for the earth, members willingly took a vow of poverty, lived in converted buses, grew their own food and home-delivered babies. Born and raised in this alternative community, filmmakers and sisters Rena and Nadine return for the first time since leaving in 1985. Finally ready to face the past after years of hiding their upbringing, they chart the rise and fall of America’s largest utopian socialist experiment and their own family tree. The nascent idealism of a community destroyed, in part, by its own success is reflected in the personal story of a family unit split apart by differences. American Commune finds inspiration in failure, humour in deprivation and, most surprisingly, that communal values are alive and well in the next generation.
Narrated by Oprah Winfrey, this is the moving and inspiring story of a disabled orphan who overcame poverty and prejudice to become a world hero after he rode a bicycle with one leg across the nation of Ghana.
A bold, feminist film about how the vagina has shaped our view of the world and the shame around female sexuality. Women from 19 to 77 years old talk about puberty, menstruation, birth, motherhood, infertility, menopause, pleasure, sex, pain, trauma, gender, sexuality, cancer, rape and FGM.
From feminist director and provocateur Monika Treut comes this eclectic collection of four short documentaries profiling unconventional women. One has Camille Paglia explaining her ways of thinking. One has Annie Sprinkle explaining her approach to performance art, which includes inviting audience members to view her cervix with a speculum. One interview investigates a professional woman's preoccupation with sadomasochism. The fourth documents the life adjustments of an F2M (female-to-male) sex change who looks like a dangerous biker, with slick black hair, a matching motorcycle jacket, and tattoos.
Breaking The Frame is a feature–length documentary portrait of the New York artist Carolee Schneemann by Canadian filmmaker Marielle Nitoslawska. A pioneer of performance and body art as well as avant-garde cinema, Schneemann has been breaking the frames of the art world for five decades, in a variety of mediums, challenging assumptions of feminism, gender, sexuality, and identity.