Wine and War

For years, there has been an effort to discover the exact origin of the most popular American grape variety and wine, Zinfandel. Thanks to modern technology, forensics, and DNA analysis, the collaboration between American and Croatian laboratories has born fruit: Zinfandel is the Croatian Crljenak Kaštelanski.

An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.

‘Objects of War’ is a series of testimonials on the Lebanese war. Each person chooses an object, ordinary or unusual, which serves as a starting point for his / her story. These testimonials while helping to create a collective memory, also show the impossibility of telling a single History of this war. Only fragments of this History are recounted here, held as truth by those expressing them. In ‘Objects of War’, the aim is not to reveal a truth but rather to gather and confront many diverse versions and discourses on the subject. ‘Objects of War’ started in 1999 assembling the testimonials of eleven persons. It was first shown in 2000 . It continued in 2003 with ‘Objects of War n°2’, recording seven additional testimonials. This time however, and since then, the recorded material is left unedited, shown in its integrity. The work of collecting and assembling these stories continued with ‘Objects of War n°3 & n°4’ in 2006 and ‘n°5 & 6’ in 2014.

Wine is confusing…overwhelming even. So where do you start if you want to learn more about it? Join John Cleese on an entertaining and personal look at the world of winemaking and discover: how to find wines that taste good to you, how to make sure you get the best value and how to keep and serve wine at home.

The meaty saga of Burger Baron, a rogue fast-food chain with mysterious origins and a cult following, run by a loose network of fiercely independent Arab Canadian immigrants.

À nos terres : Autonomia paisana

Severely battered from the Beirut Port Explosion on August 4th, Minerva passed away eight days later. Her son Joseph, while still grieving for his loss, sunk into a long and absurd bureaucratic path through the inept system that disowned his mother as a victim of the blast. Minerva is gone. The explosion has snatched her soul, and the city walls have not yet recognized her as a martyr. There is no poster of her smiling face among those of the victims. Their faces are memories that will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Perhaps her son, devastated by her passing, seeks to etch her image into the city's memory. Perhaps he is seeking some confession to the crime. This is a place that casts out its children, whether dead or alive.

Inhabitants of Beirut talk about their love for the singer Fairuz.

In July 1982, the Israeli army besieged Beirut. Four days earlier, Jocelyne Saab sees her house burn and 150 years of family existence go up in smoke. She then takes refuge in questioning: when did this all begin? How did the Beirut people live the siege? Each place will then become a story and each name a memory.

This documentary follows seven wine-making families in the Burgundy region of France, delving into the cultural and creative process of making wine. You'll never look at wine the same way again.

Mondovino (in Italian: World of Wine) is a documentary film on the impact of globalization on the world's different wine regions written and directed by American film maker Jonathan Nossiter. It was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and a César Award. The film explores the impact of globalization on the various wine-producing regions, and the influence of critics like Robert Parker and consultants like Michel Rolland in defining an international style. It pits the ambitions of large, multinational wine producers, in particular Robert Mondavi, against the small, single estate wineries who have traditionally boasted wines with individual character driven by their terroir.

A group of young UN soldiers in Lebanon enters service with pro-Israeli views and a naive outlook on war. They go through a radical change of heart as they witness and film the Qana massacre. They secure video evidence indicating that Israel deliberately bombed a UN camp killing 106 refugees.

Chris Renfro doesn’t just grow and harvest grapes on a hillside high above San Francisco’s Highway 280 to make delicious local wine. He is dedicated to building a sustainable food community that nourishes every member of the local economy and ecosystem. With the 280 Project’s mission to reclaim space, realize opportunity and revitalize community, Renfro brings both passion and vision to the notion that land ownership is a powerful path to self-determination.

Ab Fab stars Jennifer Saunders & Joanna Lumley share 25 years of friendship. The two funny ladies head to the Champagne region of France to find out how their favourite glass of fizz is made.

At the crossroads of Armenia and Iran, a father and daughter must overcome war, religion, and geopolitics to establish their wines on the global stage and reclaim a 6,000-year-old tradition of winemaking.

Spago restaurant maître d’ Bernard Erpicum hosts this program featuring Hollywood stars as they share tips for choosing the best wine for any occasion. Dudley Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Steven Seagal, and Peter Weller are among the guests. Added advice is provided by Robert Loggia, Kelly LeBrock, Herbie Hancock, and Shelley Hack. Other topics covered include quickly ordering from a restaurant's lengthy wine list and selecting the proper stemware for home entertaining.

Three legends in the world of wine—Fred Dame, Steven Spurrier and Jancis Robinson—sit down in Paris to taste the rarest bottles of their careers. Dustin Wilson gathers the greatest blind tasters of today in New York City for a secret tasting similar to the original Judgment of Paris, with the goal to see if any of the world’s Pinot Noirs can stand up to the greatest Burgundies of France. In the end, both tastings cross with results that could change the world of wine forever.

Eccomi ... Eccoti unfolds as a virtual road trip navigating between Italy and Lebanon. Conditioned to live in a long-distance relationship with his partner because of strict European visa regulations, the director patches together the shared moments in an attempt to create a possible day-to-day reality for their couple. With a lyrical, ambient soundscape set atop a dreamy, atmospheric visual style that oscillates between still photography and moving images, the film explores what it means to be gay in contemporary Beirut and existential discomfort that blocks one from reaching a sense of complete-ness. Does such in-completeness have to do, in particular, with being gay? Or is it related to a grander malaise endemic to the human condition?

A Kellergasse – the cellar lane – is one of the distinguishing cultural and physical features of the winegrowing region Niederösterreich – Lower Austria. There are more than a thousand of them. Until recently, wine was not only stored in the Kellergasse, but pressed and fermented there as well. Today, the Kellergassen have less to do with occupation and more with recreation. A documentary by Georg Riha follows a year in the life of this valuable cultural legacy.

In 1958, in Senegal, land of emigration, Zahia Salhab gave birth to her first child Ghassan. During the same period, Lebanon, their homeland, is driven into a significant local conflict, a preamble to the next civil war.