A Little Family Conversation

Elliott Gould narrates this affectionate look at life in the shtetls of Eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. "It's unreal that all this could have just disappeared," says Polish native Mariem Adler Stok, one of the seniors whose memories of this "Yiddish world" give this documentary its life. The hour traces Jewish history in Europe and explores Jews' focus on education, their religious customs, clothing, food, music and theater.

Lithuania, 1941, during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of texts on Jewish culture, stolen by the Germans, are gathered in Vilnius to be classified, either to be stored or to be destroyed. A group of Jewish scholars and writers, commissioned by the invaders to carry out the sorting operations, but reluctant to collaborate and determined to save their legacy, hide many books in the ghetto where they are confined. This is the epic story of the Paper Brigade.

Set in Berlin and New York's Lower East Side, The Great Yiddish Love stars the self-exiled Marlene Dietrich and her Nazi-endorsed replacement, Zarah Leander. It is a melodrama of love, emigration, and betrayal reassembled from Hollywood, German Ufa and Yiddish films from the 1930s and 40s.

An upbeat, witty, and timely exploration of a global community of artists creating innovative work in their quest to rediscover and revitalise the endangered Yiddish language. From behind-the-scenes with an acclaimed Yiddish-language version of Yentl in Melbourne, to enjoyably transgressive punk-Klezmer musicians, and Barrie Kosky’s latest trailblazing production in Berlin – the endangered Yiddish language is alive and well in this rousing documentary. The language originated amongst the Jewish community in Eastern Europe, but almost disappeared when more than half of the world’s Yiddish speakers were murdered during the Holocaust. Most of the artists and performers (aka Yiddishists) in the film didn’t grow up speaking Yiddish, but all have found solace, identity, and inspiration in its rich traditions and culture. Ros Horin has mapped a fascinating cultural history.

A bissele Glik

The Man Without a World is credited to the legendary (and imaginary) 1920s Soviet director, Yevgeny Antinov. But the film is anything but old. In fact, Antinov himself is the creation of contemporary filmmaker Eleanor Antin. Her film is a moving, comic melodrama set in a typical shtetl (village) in Poland. The Jews’ struggle against poverty and racial hatred is complicated by their own division into hostile political factions of the religious orthodoxy, assimilationists, socialists, Zionists, anarchists and survivors. While the Jews of the shtetl pursue their loves, politics, religion, business and dreams for the future, the Angel of Death is ever near...

Based her grandfather’s boyhood in St. Louis, Yasmin Gorenberg tells a story of the pain passed from refugee parents to their children and the hope that can overcome it. “40 Nickels” captures the image of a generation of immigrants to the United States in the 1920’s and 1930’s and through that spotlights the effects of the 1919 pogroms in Eastern Europe. This is a film about parents and children: how trauma never leaves a family, and how hope and resilience is also passed down. It asks the question: Can a new generation look at the world with wonder rather than fear?

Motel, a poor laborer, loving husband and new father, leads cloakmakers in a strike for better working conditions. When he is severely injured by strikebreakers, his wife, Esther, and infant son are left destitute. Desperate to save her starving child, Esther gives him up for adoption to a wealthy couple, and then commits suicide. The richly-rendered beautiful Yiddish songs by Sholem Secunda featuring Cantor Leibele Waldman and Joel Feig's famous choir are a good example of the bittersweet melodrama in the finest tradition of the Yiddish theater.

An immigrant worker at a pickle factory is accidentally preserved for 100 years and wakes up in modern day Brooklyn. He learns his only surviving relative is his great grandson, a computer coder who he can’t connect with.

Raised in rural isolation by an extremist Hasidic sect, Chaim is torn between his devotion to his grandmother, an aging Holocaust survivor, and his attraction to a sexy blond in a Liberty car insurance ad.

Ligne d’Alger à Koléa : le grand ravin

On the Island of Mindanao in the Philippines, Agusan Marsh could well be one of the last paradises on earth. But under the surface of the stagnant water lurks a man-eating monster, over 20 feet long, and over a ton in weight. After two fatal attacks, local people had only one solution: track down and capture this awesome creature. This is the story of Lolong, the largest crocodile ever captured.

Débarquement de M. le président à Alger

It's the summer of 1586. A group of Catholic extremists is planning to kill the British Queen, Elizabeth I and install the Queen of Scots on her throne. One man stands in the way: Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's spymaster and security chief. So why was this prince of spies so dedicated to this Queen? This tense film explores new evidence that transforms our understanding of his dark world.

The magnificent Mont Saint-Michel fortress has stood in the middle of a bay off the French coast of Normandy for centuries. It has come to symbolize a stubborn resistance to the passage of time and to the turbulence of European history. This film journeys through the history of this indomitable fortress going back to the 8th century AD. Explore the legends that surround this timeless masterpiece.

A memorial anthology of Alan Watt's work. Watts (1915-1973), who held both a master's degree in theology and a doctorate of divinity, is best known as an interpreter of Zen Buddhism in particular, and Indian and Chinese philosophy in general.

In the heights of the Kurdish mountains between Iran and Iraq, Helia and Sama decide to take up arms clandestinely so they no longer have to endure the violence suffered by Kurdish and by women in Iran. Inside the Komala party’s encampment, they begin their political and military formation...

Reveals the apprehensive life of children born to inmate mothers who are forced to live and become victims shrouded in prison.

This documentary film is about wolves and the negative myths surrounding the animal. Exceptional footage portrays the wolf's life cycle and the social organization of the pack, as well as film of caribou, moose, deer and buffalo.

Kazuo Ohno, Father of the Butoh Dance, first appeared on stage at the age of 43. He left the stage only at the age of one hundred, three years before he died. This short, dialogue-less film presents the exceptional range of expressions that this Japanese dancer could achieve, both with makeup and costumes and without.