A documentary produced in 1979 to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Albert Einstein. Narrated and hosted by Peter Ustinov and written by Nigel Calder.
Bending Light
Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity has revolutionised our understanding of gravity, space and time. Initially acclaimed, then forgotten, and now rediscovered, the adventure of this hundred-year-old theory has marked the scientific history of the 20th century. From its inception, a mathematical difficulty arose that could have nipped the theory in the bud: the Schwarzschild singularity. In the company of great international relativistic physicists, the viewer embarks on a discovery of this theory with a singular destiny. We discover a "curved" universe that proves to be even stranger than Einstein had envisioned, and harbours some objects - such as black holes - that still challenge today's scientists.
Prof. Jim Al-Khalili tackles the biggest subject of all, the universe. Through a series of critical observations and experiments that revolutionised our understanding of our world Jim guides us through the greatest cosmic detective story of all. He takes us from the beginning of the universe to the end time and answers the question: where did the universe come from and how will it end?
Albert Einstein: l'homme et le génie
Structural study of a tree. Light, water and air coax it out of the soil in a manner foregrounding time’s relativity to different forms of life on Earth. Made the day my brother got his fork-lift license.
An educational physics film utilizing a fascinating set consisting of a rotating table and furniture occupying surprisingly unpredictable spots within the viewing area, Leacock’s Frames of Reference (1960), features fine cinematography by Abraham Morochnik, and funny narration by University of Toronto professors Donald Ivey and Patterson Hume, in a wonderful example of the fun a creative team of filmmakers can have with a subject other, less imaginative types might find pedestrian.
Four 1950s icons meet in the same hotel room, and two of them discover more in common between them than they ever anticipated.
"The Observer's Testimony" is an intense psychological video art piece fundamentally based on Slavoj Žižek's philosophical concept of Parallax. The work utilizes a split-screen format to simultaneously present the transformation of the same clay bust into two contradictory psychological realities: The Left Screen depicts the Hunter's (The Accuser's) hardening into a cold judgment and moral decay, conceptually justified by Murat Kaplan's facial analysis; while the Right Screen reflects the Victim's (The Innocent's) dissolution into helplessness, fear, and ultimate surrender. This organic yet unnatural transformation of the busts places the viewer in the irreducible gap between two contradictory testimonies. The core goal of the work is to demonstrate the impossibility of objective truth by proving that reality is entirely dependent on the observer's subjective point of view.
Meet the men, including the man claiming to have the World's biggest penis, who reveal there is a bittersweet side to nature's gift, and who lift the veil on a taboo subject and to show the reality of what it's like to have what all men dream of.
Having Cuba as a background, decadent and in crisis, in a black-and-white lacerated by the Caraibic swinging rain, Alex and Edith, a couple in their 30s, live their love story made of small daily gestures, stories from the past, nostalgia, and a deep intimacy.
This documentary is featured on the Collector's Edition, High School Reunion Edition, and Awesome Special Edition DVDs for 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High'.
Great encounter in Rome with filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky where he develops some of his major ideas on artistic creation and in particular the importance of the temporal dimension in his conception of cinema. Tarkovsky also comments on excerpts from film directors that inspired him like Kurosawa, Buñuel and Antonioni. The "prologue" at the beginning is a quote from Tarkovsky's film Andrei Rublev.
This extraordinary film features NASA film footage enhanced by AI-based software and other image processing. The clarity of the images gives viewers a whole new perspective on what it was like to step onto lunar soil and ramble about the alien landscapes. The film shows how teams of astronauts collected evidence that has revolutionized our understanding of the origin of both Earth and the moon.
This fascinating French documentary chronicles the reopening of the Zoology Hall in the Paris Museum of Natural History in 1993. It had been closed for almost thirty years and it took three years of hard work to restore it and the stuffed creatures within.
In the greatest bar story ever told, ten friends recount the true tale of surviving their wildest night. After hiring a sketchy limousine service, a rag-tag bunch of hard partiers embark on their New Year's tradition – running naked into the Gulf of Mexico – only to find themselves 24 hours later kidnapped, stripped, stranded, and left for dead. Combining narration of the actual participants with feature-length re-creation, filmmakers Gideon C. Kennedy and Marcus Rosentrater take you on a hilarious ride about getting lost, getting found and getting hammered.
The life and work of singer, musician and actor Jards Macalé.
From Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, to the University of Toronto and the Supreme Court of Israel, I Shall Not Hate follows the uncharted path of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, The first Palestinian doctor that worked in an Israeli hospital delivering babies, whose ethos of forgiveness and reconciliation is put to the ultimate test when an Israeli tank bombs his house, killing his three daughters. Against all odds, he turns his tragedy into a global campaign to eradicate hate.
As early as 1920, the journalists of the "Münchener Post" recognized the danger posed by Adolf Hitler. Consistently and boldly they wrote about National Socialism. The brave journalists and their newspaper are almost forgotten today. A single book has been published about them - in Brazil.
From January to November 2004, as a kind of carnet de voyage alongside our other activities, we asked one and the same question of various people we met on our journeys, including friends: "Do you remember a moment in your life when something really changed?" We requested them to tell us a story to illustrate their reply, and we filmed them.