Afghan Cycles

In 2009, Alex Gibney was hired to make a film about Lance Armstrong’s comeback to cycling. The project was shelved when the doping scandal erupted, and re-opened after Armstrong’s confession. The Armstrong Lie picks up in 2013 and presents a riveting, insider's view of the unraveling of one of the most extraordinary stories in the history of sports. As Lance Armstrong says himself, “I didn’t live a lot of lies, but I lived one big one.”

A journey through the parts of Afghanistan that don't normally feature in news coverage to meet some amazing people and see fascinating places. Lyse Doucet uses her many years experience in Afghanistan to show a different side of a country which has been at war for 30 years.

The North Shore mountain biking movement began early 1980 in Vancouver BC. Since then it's essential features of pushing limits in extreme conditions, philosophies, politics and extensive product developments have been adopted and become the main stream into every facet of professional and recreational mountain biking to date. A documentary not about entrepreneurs striving to make a buck. The true essence of creative freedom and what can happen when you put your hands and skills to it. This is the history of the North Shore.

Bordeaux-Paris was the best bike race you’ve never heard of: a midnight start, 550km-long, and ridden behind motorised ‘dernys’, with winners including Jacques Anquetil and Tom Simpson. More than thirty years since Bordeaux-Paris was last raced, pro cyclists Mitch Docker and Sam Bewley are aiming to recreate the infamous 1965 edition. How will they fare at the ‘Derby of the Road’?

The deeply personal story of elite Welsh trans cyclist Emily Bridges as she fights to represent her country in the female category for the first time at the Commonwealth Games.

This Russian documentary offered tantalizing glimpses of Afghanistan, which in 1929 was still one of the few heavily-populated areas in the world where the residents continued to live as they did in the Middle Ages. A progressive new leader named Amnullah tries to "Westernize" the country, meeting plenty of resistance from native reactionaries.

Haji Omar and his three sons belong to the Lakankhel, a Pashtoon tribal group in northeastern Afghanistan. The film focuses on his family: Haji Omar, the patriarch; Anwar, the eldest, his father's favorite, a pastoralist and expert horseman; Jannat Gul, cultivator and ambitious rebel; and Ismail, the youngest, attending school with a view to a job as a government official.

This film is a glimpse of the traditional life of the Afghan people, their culture and their music, just before the Russian intervention in 1979.

Before Lance Armstrong, there was Greg LeMond, who is now the first and only American to win the Tour de France. In this engrossing documentary, LeMond looks back at the pivotal 1986 Tour, and his increasingly vicious rivalry with friend, teammate, and mentor Bernard Hinault. The reigning Tour champion and brutal competitor known as “The Badger,” Hinault ‘promised’ to help LeMond to his first victory, in return for LeMond supporting him in the previous year. But in a sport that purports to reward teamwork, it’s really every man for himself.

June 2020, Corona, one year after the national women's strike. Six directors dive into the everyday life of six women and explore what it means to be a woman in today's Switzerland.

Závod míru 1954

María and Isabel are two women in their fifties who, like many others, recycle in Quito, where there is no recycling system. María leads a collective fight for basic labor rights; while Isabel transmits her knowledge of environmental care while she raises her daughters.

In 1928 an under-resourced and untested team from New Zealand and Australia competed in what is considered to be the toughest sporting event in the world. Many considered the entry of these courageous underdogs, racing as a team of 4 against teams of 10, a joke. One French journalist called their attempt nothing short of murder. 168 riders started the more than 3,500-mile race, only 41 finished. Surprisingly this remarkable story about the achievements of these brave athletes has never been told on film, until now. Phil Keoghan - television personality, adventurer and cycling enthusiast, retraces the 1928 Tour de France route, bringing history to life. Following the original course and schedule, riding a vintage bike, Phil and his team will average 150 miles a day for 22 stages.

In 1998 Marco Pantani, the most flamboyant and popular cyclist of his era, won both the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia, a titanic feat of physical and mental endurance that no rider has repeated since. He was a hero to millions, the saviour of cycling following the doping scandals which threatened to destroy the sport. However, less than six years later, aged just 34, he died alone, in a cheap hotel room, from acute cocaine poisoning. He had been an addict for five years. This is the story of the tragic battles fought by the most important Italian cyclist of his generation; man verses mountain, athlete verses addiction, Marco Pantani verses himself.

An Iranian diplomat who miraculously survived Taliban's raid on the Iranian consulate in Mazar E Sharif (Afghanistan) narrates his 19 days of hide and escape to reach Iran's borders meanwhile on the other side, the Iranian troops are preparing for retaliation.

An urban documentary illuminating the struggles of pedestrians, bike and skateboard commuters in Charleston, SC experience on a daily basis.

The friendship between Christophe de Ponfilly and Commander Massoud, a legendary figure of the Afghan resistance against the Soviet invader, goes back to the filmmaker's first film, "A Valley Against an Empire", made in 1981. Fifteen years later, weakened, isolated, betrayed by many of his own, the "Lion of Panshir" has not surrendered to his new and implacable enemies, the Taliban. While preparing his next offensive, he evokes his commitment and his fights, and bears witness to a history in which he has been one of the main actors for twenty years. At the same time, the director questions the role and power of the media, as well as his own approach as a filmmaker. Commander Massoud was killed in an attack in September 2001.

The story of the road to women's suffrage in Sweden featuring interviews with relatives of the main characters.

Annita Malavasi was just 22 when the Germans occupied Italy, their former allies, in 1943. As a partisan in the Italian resistance named “Laila”, she moved throughout the Apennines with and between fighting units, delivering information, transporting weapons, and taking part in battles. She spent over a year in the Apennines, fighting against the German occupation. At the same time, she had to assert herself against the men of the mountain villages. By the end of the war, Laila had risen among the ranks to become one of the few female commanders in the Italian resistance. This film chronicles the story of a lifelong struggle for emancipation that began with the battle for Italy’s liberation from fascism. Laila and her two comrades, Gina “Sonia” Moncigoli and Pierina “Iva” Bonilauri talk about their time in the Resistenza and what it meant to them and many other women.

Inside the very first girls' school in a small Afghan village, education goes far beyond the classroom as the students discover the differences between the lives they were born into and the lives they dream of leading.