The Cistercian monks of Austria are holy men who rise at 4:30 a.m., pray for more than four hours a day and have devoted their lives to God. They're also pop stars. This documentary offers a glimpse at the daily life of the joyous monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz Abbey whose recordings of their ethereal Gregorian chants have turned them into chart-topping music sensations.
Filmed with a cybershot camera, the experimental short proposes a journey about architecture, loneliness, and hope.
The troubled story of the Churruca family, a noble lineage of brave seamen, descendants of Cosme Damián Churruca, the Spanish hero of the Battle of Trafalgar; from the Spanish-American War (1898) to the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). (In 1950, a new cut of the film was released with less ideological depth and ten minutes shorter.)
Soviet animation from Vladimir Tarasov.
Gazoros Serron
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?
Maria Luiza da Silva is the first transgender in the history of the Brazilian Armed Forces. After 22 years of work in the military, she retired due to disability. The film explores the complex barriers she faced and her path of affirmation as a trans, military and Catholic woman.
Il était une fois... Vincent, François, Paul et les autres
Migrating is seldom an easy solution. It is rather a journey, that begins with a journey. After more than eight years of campaigning, the immigrant cleaners outsourced at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London continue to demand being brought in-house. Limpiadores charts the history of their and others’ campaigns – from winning the London Living Wage to the deportation of nine colleagues, and the day-to-day invisible labour of cleaners on our campus.
Somm takes the viewer on a humorous, emotional and illuminating look into the mysterious world of the Court of Master Sommeliers and their massively intimidating Master Sommelier Exam.
Capturing Avatar is a feature length behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Avatar. It uses footage from the film's development, as well as stock footage from as far back as the production of Titanic in 1995. Also included are numerous interviews with cast, artists, and other crew members. The documentary was released as a bonus feature on the extended collector's edition of Avatar.
A documentary capturing the modern day VHS culture and VHS collectors.
A school teacher never just teaches. A step back in time of the life of a school teacher in a small city in the North of France and her experience of the profession.
Khawla's Goal
Taipeilove* is a documentary on the perception of homosexuality in the Taiwanese society. As Taiwan is the first country in Asia that is in the process of legalizing same-sex marriage, the documentary follows activists, politicians and experts in the Taiwanese society who have been fighting for marriage equality and navigating their lives through the hardship of coming-out, reaction of families, abandonment and finding love.
The social contract: the rules we follow - and some don’t. Breaking Social uncovers the pattern of corruption and kleptocracy erasing the social tissue, followed by social uprisings. In Chile a new turn is taken, with young women in the lead.
Water Birds is a 1952 short documentary film directed by Ben Sharpsteen. The film delves into the still waters of lagoons and marshes to the wild blue wilderness of the vast oceans, to experience the beauty and variety of their majestic birds, each perfectly designed for its habitat. It won the Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-Reel.
After the impressive Gulistan, Land of Roses (VdR 2016), the Kurdish filmmaker Zaynê Akyol returns with these conversations with imprisoned members of the Islamic State, alternating their words with aerial views of the countryside. An unexpected look at a far-reaching current political issue and a film whose subject matter and rhythm create an impressive cinematic object.
In the spring of 1970, between the African Orestiade and The Decameron, Pasolini shot a film for which he wrote a commentary in verses but never finished editing. The film was born as a typical Pasolini intervention: filming the strike of the garbage collectors in Rome, who at the time worked in dramatic health conditions, and filming the humility of their daily work, amidst the waste and scraps of society, in the squares and in the streets. Pasolini also filmed the faces of garbage collectors engaged in claims discussions and the result was an extraordinary anthropological picture of an unknown humanity.
The documentary focuses on the youth movements that overthrew governments in countries such as Georgia, Ukraine, Serbia, Kyrgyzstan and other former socialist countries of Eastern Europe, and shows how, in places where political parties were discredited, student movements financed by U.S. organizations such as the NED, USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, the International Democratic Institute, Freedom House, and others received the support that helped overthrow their governments, have received the aid that has allowed them to overthrow their governments.