My No Place

A small city in the tropical north of Queensland, Cairns boasts a life that is leisurely and comfortable. The tempo quickens, however, at cane-cutting time when the sugar is harvested, and in winter when tourists come north to escape the cold. The Life In Australia series portrays Australian cities and rural centres as happy, lively places where good homes, abundant jobs, schools, hospitals and amenities provide the foundation for a relaxed lifestyle where sport, shopping, religion and even art combine to create a homogenous and prosperous society.

When the Kahuku sugar plantation and mill shut down in the 1970's, workers who lived in plantation housing had to decide how to hold the community together and create something new out of an industry that had come to an end. This is the story of their successful transition from plantation to self-governing community.

The video is accompanied by a richly detailed article that adds more depth to the documentary. If there’s any question about why Hollywood is dead set against the unionization of vfx artists, the following graphic from the article will answer the question: vfx artists comprise the biggest portion of the crew on most Hollywood blockbusters.

Linda

FINDING THE MONEY follows economist Stephanie Kelton on a journey through Modern Money Theory or “MMT”. Kelton provocatively asserts the National Debt Clock that ticks ominously upwards in New York City is not actually a debt for us taxpayers at all, nor a burden for our grandchildren to pay back. Instead, Kelton describes the national debt as simply a historical record of the number of dollars created by the US federal government currently being held in pockets, as assets, by the rest of us. MMT bursts into the media with journalists asking, “Have we been thinking about how the government spends money, all wrong?” But top economists from across the political spectrum condemn the theory as “voodoo economics”, “crazy” and “a crackpot theory”. FINDING THE MONEY traces the conflict all the way back to the story we tell about money, injecting new hope and empowering countries around the world to tackle the biggest challenges of the 21st century: from climate change to inequality.

Folding towels, straightening out sheets, taking bathrobes out of the dryer, stripping beds, cleaning up vomit. Fluffing pillows—making a dent for elegantly turned-up corners—and endless scrubbing, cleaning and clearing up messes. Behind the scenes of a hotel in the Italian Dolomites, the staff do everything they can to serve the guests and prevent complaints. The hotel has four stars, and a fifth is in sight.

A very human tech doc, uncovers the real costs of the platform economy through the lives of workers from around the world for companies including Uber, Amazon and Deliveroo. From delivering food and driving ride shares to tagging images for AI, millions of people around the world are finding work task by task online. The gig economy is worth over 5 trillion USD globally, and growing. And yet the stories of the workers behind this tech revolution have gone largely neglected. Who are the people in this shadow workforce? It brings their stories into the light. Lured by the promise of flexible work hours, independence, and control over time and money, workers from around the world have found a very different reality. Work conditions are often dangerous, pay often changes without notice, and workers can effectively be fired through deactivation or a bad rating. Through an engaging global cast of characters, it reveals how the magic of technology we are being sold might not be magic at all.

Taking a detour from the usual settings of Africa and South America, this mondo film focuses on Japan and Sweden, exploring strange and unusual scenes like the effects of pollution in a Japanese fishing village, esoteric psychotherapy methods, assisted fertilization, heatt surgery, sex education for blind children in sweden, military training for young Palestinians in Lebanon, a female priest celebrating mass and a school for children with phocomelia.

The moral dimension of humanity's interaction with nonhuman animals and the industries that profit from their exploitation, as informed by world religions. A historical explanation of how the current global situation came to be.

Exposing the dark underbelly of modern animal agriculture through drones, hidden & handheld cameras, the feature-length film explores the morality and validity of our dominion over the animal kingdom.

Mondo Cane and the Schoolgirl Report series stand as obvious influences on this occasionally amusing but generally rather tedious exploitation film that alternates between documentary, fake documentary and docudrama. The theme is Satanism and the linking thread is a recreation of what is supposedly the real-life case of a murder and attempted murder of two Munich teenage men by a quartet of girls who had been dabbling in devil worship. During the ensuing trial, the lawyer resorts to dilatory tactics while the hearing is frequently interrupted by the girls breaking into incantation, temper tantrums or shivery fits ostensibly bearing on demonic possession. When the subject of the Manson killings is brought up, the most obnoxious of the defendants breaks in indignantly, claiming that Sharon Tate’s “execution” was justified as she posed dangers to the Satanic community.

The film looks at men and women of color in the U.S. Merchant Marine from 1938-1975. Through chronicling the lives of these men and women who, with a median age of 82, are beset with a host of life-threatening illnesses, the movie tells how they navigated issues of racism, disparities in the workplace, gender and familial relations.

Cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus relive the creation, rise and fall of their independent film company, Cannon Films. This documentary recounts their many successes and discusses their eventual downfall.

WELCOME TO THE ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE CINEMA, the most awesome post-modern hot spot for exploitation movie revival, deep in the heart of Texas! Home to world-famous events such as The Quentin Tarantino Film Fest, Fantastic Fest and Butt-Numb-A-Thon, the Alamo is one of the last places on earth where you can still see grindhouse classics such as THE DEVIL WITHIN HER and MAD MONKEY KUNG FU. Now, the Alamo has opened their vaults for a peek at some of the most outrageous cinematic gems from several golden ages of sleaze cinema. Digitally re-mastered in high-definition from the actual reels that show every week at the Alamo, this exciting edition of the 42ND STREET FOREVER series is the most bizarre, the most terrifying and the most hilarious one yet!

A film about the unprecedented Swiss grassroots movement of regular citizens who rise to aid thousands of refugees stranded at the European borders. In rich and safe Switzerland people from all backgrounds leave their regular life behind to support people in need. There is a Swiss farmer and his wife who keep cows in the Swiss Alps, a former commander of the Swiss Army, an elder rich lady residing at the lakeside, and a successful comedian and entertainer. These unexperienced volunteers take on an adventure that will change their lives forever.

1972 in Haute-Savoie (France) : the Bertrand's farm, with a hundred dairy cows owned by three bachelor brothers, is filmed for the first time. In 1997, they were the subject of Gilles Perret's first movie, as they let their farm to their nephew Patrick and his wife Hélène. Nowadays, 25 years later, Gilles Perret take another look at this farm, managed by Hélène who will step down. Through their words, an intimate, social and economic history of the rural world.

A nine-year-old Syrian refugee girl contemplates her increasingly bleak future after being forced to drop out of school in the midst of Lebanon’s unprecedented economic collapse and battle with Covid-19.

DEBT is the story of a frantic pursuit: the search for the responsible for the televised cry of hunger of Barbara Flores, an eight-year-old Argentinean girl. Buenos Aires, Washington, the IMF, the World Bank and Davos; corruption and the international bureaucratic lack of interest.

Muckraking filmmaker Morgan Spurlock reignites his battle with the food industry — this time from behind the register — as he opens his own fast food restaurant.

With unprecedented access to NZ Customs' Child Exploitation Operations Team, this documentary reveals the complex & lifesaving work of our investigators at the frontline of online child abuse crimes.