Documentary on various aspects of Kuwaiti life, the contrasts between a backward society that lives in the desert and a very modern society that lives in the city.
Manon de Boer films the dancer Cynthia Loemij, who improvises to Eugène Ysaÿe’s 3 Sonates for Violin Solo.
This is the story of the incredible struggle for survival of the dragons of the Galapagos. On the island of Fernandina, each year Land Iguanas migrate up the steep slopes of the 5000ft active volcano to lay their eggs in the warm soil. If the rim of the crater is fully occupied they have to climb 1 km down the steep crater walls to the floor below. Many are killed finding a path down as the walls are steep & dangerously unstable causing many landslides.
During his adventure in Mexico, Sergei Eisenstein made footage of a Mexican "Death Day" celebration for inclusion in his "Que Viva Mexico!" film project. When the 200,000-plus feet of film he eventually exposed in Mexico was first attempted to be made into a feature film, "Thunder Over Mexico", the producers excluded the Death Day material for subsequent compilation as an independent short subject. Silent with music track and explanatory English intertitles.
Flight is the ultimate superpower, an extraordinary ability that humans can only dream of. Yet an astonishing number of animals have mastered the skies. Now, new technology allows us to join them in their previously hidden world, ‘flying’ alongside these gravity-defying animals and experiencing their unique point of view. With exceptional skills and breath-taking design, creatures ranging from frogs to fish, from spiders to squirrels, spend their lives mid-air. Life in the Air captures this extraordinary animal behaviour and reveals – in incredible detail – the amazing science of flight.
Documentary about the universe and the craft of popular photographers who work at parties, fairs and pilgrimages in the northeastern interior of Brazil.
An audiovisual snow storm in front of a black ground, a white horizontal line that divides the image, grid planes, unfolding and folding dimensions. Set to atonal, techno, and orchestral sounds; an abstract (non-)world beyond comprehension, a visual experience that one must intuitively sense. Lost in space and time – the big bang of consciousness
Argemira
A five-year visual ethnography of traditional yet practical orchestration of Semana Santa in a small town where religious woodcarving is the livelihood. An experiential film on neocolonial Philippines’ interpretation of Saints and Gods through many forms of rituals and iconographies, exposing wood as raw material that undergoes production processes before becoming a spiritual object of devotion. - A sculpture believed to have been imported in town during Spanish colonial conquest, locally known as Mahal na Señor Sepulcro, is celebrating its 500 years. Meanwhile, composed of non-actors, Senakulo re-enacts the sufferings and death of Jesus. As the local community yearly unites to commemorate the Passion of Christ, a laborious journey unfolds following local craftsmen in transforming blocks of wood into a larger than life Jesus crucified on a 12-ft cross.
A group of scientists are thinking outside the box for ways to reverse the effects of global warming. And who better to save the earth than National Geographic Channel's host of the World's Toughest Fixes, Sean Riley? He'll join these experts in the labs and in the field to see what wacky new technologies are being developed, like sending mirrors into space and reducing the greenhouse emissions chickens produce.
An Eternalism film.
Informed by an underlying sense of anxiety and anguish, Michael Robinson’s Polycephaly in D nestles fragments of narrative within a collage of sound, image, and text that oscillates between the elegant and the discordant.
Erika Blanc self-reflectively narrates her descent into Italian genre cinema while she hyperbolically playacts in the woods.
Pestilent City covers Manhattan from South to North, from Times Square to Harlem, finding along the way ever more poverty, violence, rage and tragic drunkenness.
Although it was actually an impersonal commissioned film, the director's style is clearly recognizable. Once again he manages to make something that is normal very strange: the dancing people in costumes are filmed in such a way that they look bizarre and absurd. Jan de Bont's camerawork shows a series of color images of dancing people, edited to the rhythm of the music. Halfway through the film, a lonely clown can be seen among the dancing crowd, accompanied by sad music. This clown is played by Ditvoorst himself.
Amateur taxidermist, Walter Potter, became an unlikely success by putting his creatures in human positions and scenarios, referred to as anthropomorphic taxidermy. Potter's Museum, filled with his creations and collection of oddities and curiosities dazzled millions for over a hundred years until the collection's unfortunate separation in 2003. While largely about the man and his creations, the film also takes a look at the obsessive nature of collecting, as well as the controversial history of stuffing dead animals.
"Don't go in the Water." This line bred fear in millions of people around the world. In 1975, Jaws showcased the greatest eating machine, the great white shark, on the big scren and changed the swimming habits of movie-goers everywhere. By far the most feared creature in the sea, this species is responsible for more attacks on human beings that all other sharks combined. Step outside the Hollywood hype and travel to South Australia with an expedition as they attempt to increase understanding and reduce human/shark confrontations. Observe the behavior and lifestyle of the great white shark, and see these miracles of evolution up close in this unforgettable exploration under sea.
A symphony of found footage scenes, each shot loosely connected to the one before.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., discusses his development as a writer, including references to some of his major novels, his themes and their meaning, his relationship to other writers, problems in sustaining his special vision of American life, and his future. Accompanied by photographs that chronicle the author’s life and selections from home movies taken during his youth.
These film clips tell the story of the human experience of living with HIV/AIDS. People with HIV/AIDS, their husbands and wives, their families, their doctors and health workers talk about how HIV/AIDS has affected their lives. These are the personal video stories from Cameroon and Zimbabwe in which people speak out about their hopes and fears, their struggle against pain and abandonment and their fight for greater awareness and understanding. The film challenges stereotypes and calls for a concerted effort to face up to the epidemic.