Understanding Your Ideals

For ten years, Raymond Depardon has followed the lives of farmer living in the mountain ranges. He allows us to enter their farms with astounding naturalness. This moving film speaks, with great serenity, of our roots and of the future of the people who work on the land. This the last part of Depardon's triptych "Profils paysans" about what it is like to be a farmer today in an isolated highland area in France. "La vie moderne" examines what has become of the persons he has followed for ten years, while featuring younger people who try to farm or raise cattle or poultry, come hell or high water.

Sean Penn is almost a living legend. His filmography paints a picture of an 'other America': the lower class, the oppressed and the outsiders. Whether as an actor or director, he turns all the great myths upside down.

When nomadic beekeepers break Honeyland’s basic rule (take half of the honey, but leave half to the bees), the last female beehunter in Europe must save the bees and restore natural balance.

The first of a documentary serie about rural France.

Second documentary of a trilogy produced on the long term (together with Profils paysans: l'approche (2001) and Profils paysans: La vie moderne (2008)), showing the simple lives of farmers in contemporary Southern France.

Intimately following 1st and 6th graders at a public elementary school in Tokyo, we observe kids learning the traits necessary to become part of Japanese society.

On the shores of Jeju Island, a fierce group of South Korean divers fight to save their vanishing culture from looming threats.

In a career spanning more than half a century, Bernard Blier has shot more than 180 films. He alone represents a history of French cinema without having spent his time cultivating its legend. He crossed his century as an actor with the modesty of a craftsman. He believed in learning, know-how and transmission. He considered himself, like the butcher or the cabinetmaker, as a man useful to his fellow men. Bernard Blier found in Louis Jouvet, who was his teacher at the Conservatory, a master at playing, a mentor and even a spiritual father. Jouvet taught Blier the love of acting, theater and Molière. And if he knew how to take hold of Michel Audiard's best tirades like no one else, notably those of the "Tontons Flingueurs", it is to this apprenticeship that he owes it.

The sites and sounds at the 800-year-old Horenji Temple in Kyoto — electro music, English, takoyaki, a kaleidoscopic elephant — would seem to belie its long history. But in order for the family-run temple to thrive in the 21st century, it must continue to reinvent itself. Intimately following future head priest Scion (30) along with his fiancée Haruka and firstborn sister Ariya, critically-acclaimed director Ema Ryan Yamazaki captures one unexpected corner of Japanese society's struggle to balance tradition with progress.

An old, broken morin khurr (horse head fiddle) compels renowned Mongolian singer Urna Chahar Tugchi to take a road journey to Ulan Bator and the steppes of Mongolia.

They proclaim themselves masters of virility and seduce thousands of young Quebecers. Who are they? Journalist Simon Coutu delves into the world of influencers who claim the role of alpha male.

Living in France, a Rwandan psychotherapist committed to rebuilding her country returns this time to learn to play the inanga, the traditional zither. A moving journey through a festive Rwanda, in search of her cultural identity.

Comitiva Esperança

The secrets about unlocking the mysteries of consciousness by plant-drugs. The related chances and risks involved in this shamanism. While filming Blueberry, the Secret Experience, Jan Kounen met the Shipibo healers of the Peruvian Amazon and discovered their sacred plant: Ayahuasca, the spirit vine. Deeply affected by this experience, he decided to return to Peru to shoot a documentary on the plant and the medicinal rites of the shamans. To this end, he filmed the natives but also met neurologists, philosophers, artists, and chemists working on this subject. He notably interviewed Jean Giraud, the illustrator of Blueberry, and Kary Mullis, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. More than a traditional documentary, the film is an invitation to travel, a half-open door to another world or another perception of reality. The secrets about unlocking the mysteries of consciousness by plant-drugs. The related chances and risks involved in this shamanism.

It was a different time! The female contestants on an Irish TV show with an iconic gentleman host look back on a beige-coloured chapter in TV history. More than entertaining kitsch, and with some delightfully quick-witted ladies in the winning role.

Buddhist monk and photographer Matthieu Picard as he returns to the Asian country in the Himalayas where he spent a decade after seven years away, revisiting breathtaking landscapes and experiencing local traditions.

Amma, one of India's most famous "Mahatmas" or spiritual guides, is known internationally for her charitable donations, fight for peace, and work with illiteracy. In 2002, she won the Gandhi King Prize for her work, joining a prestigious group of winners that include, Nelson Mandela and Khofi Annan. Here is a chronicle of her journey throughout India, traveling with her inner circle to visit with her disciples.

Through the unrelenting winter in the north of Japan, a small group of workers must brave unusual working conditions to bring to life a 2,000-year-old tradition known as sake. A cinematic documentary, The Birth of Sake is a visually immersive experience of an almost-secret world in which large sacrifices must be made for the survival of a time-honored brew.

Venerdì Santo - Bronte

For thirty years in the late-twentieth century, the people of Tahiti survived dozens of offshore nuclear tests by the French government. Since the country was colonized in 1880, the blasts left Tahitians picking through the remnants of their islands and culture in an effort to keep indigenous knowledges alive. The film offers a poetic glimpse into contemporary Tahiti, and the colonial struggles its people still face as they strive to sustain their way of life.