For more than three decades, transnational corporations have been busy buying up what used to be known as the commons -- everything from our forests and our oceans to our broadcast airwaves and our most important intellectual and cultural works. In This Land is Our Land, acclaimed author David Bollier, a leading figure in the global movement to reclaim the commons, bucks the rising tide of anti-government extremism and free market ideology to show how commercial interests are undermining our collective interests. Placing the commons squarely within the American tradition of community engagement and the free exchange of ideas and information, Bollier shows how a bold new international movement steeped in democratic principles is trying to reclaim our common wealth by modeling practical alternatives to the restrictive monopoly powers of corporate elites.
Good Copy Bad Copy is a documentary about copyright and culture in the context of Internet, peer-to-peer file sharing and other technological advances.
NOTHING TO HIDE is an independent documentary dealing with surveillance and its acceptance by the general public through the "I have nothing to hide" argument. The documentary was produced and directed by a pair of Berlin-based journalists, Mihaela Gladovic and Marc Meillassoux. It was crowdfunded by over 400 backers. NOTHING TO HIDE questions the growing, puzzling and passive public acceptance of massive corporate and governmental incursions into individual and group privacy and rights. After the emotion initially triggered by the Snowden revelations, it seems that the general public has finally accepted to live in a monitored digital world.
This film describes some of CC’s success stories and gives insight into where we’re headed.
Paywall: The Business of Scholarship is a documentary which focuses on the need for open access to research and science, questions the rationale behind the $25.2 billion a year that flows into for-profit academic publishers, examines the 35-40% profit margin associated with the top academic publisher Elsevier and looks at how that profit margin is often greater than some of the most profitable tech companies like Apple, Facebook and Google.
Member of a neo-Nazi gang, her day job is to take care of four crazy old people that all are just waiting to die. Her life becomes a journey into a burlesque fairytale, where the rules of the game are created by Mette herself. Mette is indifferent about her way of life, until she one night assaults a man, kicking him senseless. Waking up the day after, she realizes that something is wrong.
A powerful profile of women prisoners in New York dealing with HIV/AIDS.
GATHER AT THE RIVER points Mugge's cameras (and his sharply recorded sound) at the ongoing evolution of bluegrass, the 'high lonesome' music that is celebrated each year at the World of Bluegrass Festival in Owensboro, Ky. The 1993 event constitutes the entirety of Mugge's film, a generous feast of performance by the finest bluegrass musicians, punctuated by authoritative commentary about the past, present and future of bluegrass music… Pure magic.
Documentary following the band Wednesday and their lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
The idea for Gaza in Context emerged during the summer of 2014 when Israel launched its most devastating offensive on the besieged Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip to date. Despite the immense destruction wrought upon a captive population Israel successfully claimed victimhood in western media as it launched 6,000 airstrikes and 50,000 artillery shells in an air and ground offensive that lasted for 51-days. The course of the media cycle made evident the need for an assertive framework to explain Israel’s systematic wars. Specifically, to counter its defensive claims and situate its aggression within a broader settler-colonial project in Palestine.
Le jardin des planches
What does it mean to follow one’s calling into an abbey and a brewery? Inspired by the growth of the American craft beer movement, a group of Catholic monks in Spencer, Massachusetts produces America’s first “Trappist-certified” beer, a historically European tradition that offers an opportunity for the community to preserve their unique way of life. “Ora et labora” is Latin for “work and prayer,” and is the motto of the Christian monastic life.
Speech, public square, election. Somewhere in France during the presidential campaign.
Herdeiros (Heirs) is a documentary about samba, about carnival, about the power of a resistant tradition. Shot in Morro da Serrinha in Rio, the film tells the story of the cultural and musical heritage, of the African heritage of formerly enslaved people in Brazil today.
Marianne
A mother tries to leave her memory of being a victim during the war in Timor Leste. A daughter tries to secure herself under a marriage. They are trying to find the real meaning of freedom. Maria is one of the female victims of sexual violence in Timor Leste in their dark years of independence. She sees that such possibility can happen as well to Flora just because of a bride price.
Tut is a 52-year-old fisherman living in Kampot. In spite of the language barrier, he recounts for the first time and without any words his past during the Khmer Rouge regime, demonstrating the torture he experienced in prison the year he turned fifteen.
A galvanizing indictment of how we are sabotaging our children's development and our society's future that will transform the way we think about our families, schools, and lives.
The documentary addresses the questions, who are the film industry’s female faces? What are their voices, which experiences have they had, and above all: What do they wish for the future? In an interview format, the documentary focuses on the protagonists and their individual experiences. The ensemble includes nearly 30 actors, writers, directors, and producers. By means of personal conversations, the audience gains an intense and authentic insight into the lives of those working in film. During the filming in the following year, male-diverse participants were also invited to create a multifaceted discourse. The topics include structural and individual issues such as gender equality, power structures, female diversity, and much more. In dialogue with the participants, the documentary looks toward the future: Where are there promising approaches already, where are the opportunities for (self-)empowerment, and how can we initiate change, both individually and collectively?
November 5, 2024 is election day and the USA is facing a momentous decision linked to the questions: Will Kamala Harris succeed in becoming the first woman President of the USA? Or will Donald Trump return to the White House? What consequences would a Trump victory have for the USA, the world and especially for Germany? Ingo Zamperoni, together with filmmaker Birgit Wärnke, embarks on a multifaceted journey through a country that seems more irreconcilable and polarized than ever before. The well-known Tagesthemen anchorman discusses the election-deciding issues such as inflation, migration, abortion and the Ukraine war during visits to members of his partly American family and their acquaintances, but also with celebrities such as pop star and Trump friend Kid Rock, football legend Jürgen Klinsmann, who lives in California, and the former commander of the US Army in Europe, Ben Hodges.