Humor helps people through hard times. A look at the viral videos, songs and sketches that have filled the Internet worldwide since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and what this lockdown humor says about humans in distress.
Kapwa, a Filipino term that means "togetherness" or "neighbor", is a recognition of a shared identity; an inner self that is shared with others. WHO WE BECOME is a story of kapwa and follows three Filipino women each coming into their political consciousness and discovering themselves during a pivotal moment in their lives.
The epic story of how people around the world lived through the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, from lockdowns to funerals to protests. Filming across the globe and using extensive personal video and local footage, FRONTLINE documented how people and countries responded to COVID-19 across cultures, races, faiths and privilege.
A French documentary on how Covid-19 affected Hollywood and the cinema industry in the United States.
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.”
Documents a southern Ohio story of partnership and creative problem-solving that helped a hospital tackle its PPE shortage.
Under pressure to continue a winning tradition in American tennis, Mardy Fish faced mental health challenges that changed his life on and off the court.
Join iconic Canadian artists, activists, actors, and athletes as they share their stories of hope and inspiration in this national salute to our frontline workers and in support of Food Banks Canada’s COVID-19 relief efforts.
The Covid hysteria began with slogans like “just 15 days to flatten the curve”, but within a year, it evolved to be “everyone must get vaccinated”. Your rights to the absence of coercion and informed consent are now under continual attack! People around the world are unable to get on planes and trains, access hospitals, attend funerals, go to restaurants and gyms, simply because they do not have a “health” pass.
In a Documentary Special, Matt Frei speaks to leading healthcare experts, asking how the NHS will cope with coronavirus, and if we should be acting quicker to stop things spiralling out of control.
A short film of the first weeks of strict national lockdown, filmed in Barcelona on a classic home video camera Hi8. Narrates the story of three women who share a flat and who create a microworld not only to survive the global pandemic but also to survive themselves.
“Let’s see if you gained any weight. 26,3 kilogram. Ahmet, you need to eat more. Double meals.” Like other boys their age, Baran, Ahmet and their classmates wrestle with the desire for recognition, with homesickness and with their target weights. Most of all though, they wrestle with, and against, one another. They are comrades and competitors, united by one and the same dream: Olympic gold! In their wrestling academy in the Turkish province of Amasya, which is well known for this traditional form of combat sport, they undergo strength and endurance training, they learn lifts and throws, they urge each other on and they console one another. Always responding to the boys’ needs, the trainers give the boys tough love, sometimes fatherly, sometimes strict and disciplinary. The film’s intimate documental camera bears close witness to the fine line between friendship and competition, victory and the lesson of how to lose.
Beijing, China, 2020. Empty streets, mandatory masks, checkpoints, the entire state apparatus used to impose severe restrictions on population movements. An entire country quarantined to fight a fierce epidemic…
A father’s heartfelt plea to have lifesaving talks with pre-teens and teens comes after his 12-year-old son’s suicide from COVID-related isolation.
British documentary filmmaker and producer Tony Maylam reinvigorated the sports documentary genre with WHITE ROCK, an idiosyncratic and utterly engaging account of the XII Olympic Winter Games Innsbruck 1976. He did so by placing music (by organ and synth wunderkind Rick Wakeman) front and center, and by using Hollywood star James Coburn as a "guide for the uninitiated."
It is one of the toughest races in alpine skiing: the Patrouille des Glaciers. Frédéric Favre accompanied three participants for a year and a half. In the training that pushes them to their physical limits, in the mental preparation that reveals their deepest fears, in the race that pushes them to their limits. Florence wants to compete in memory of her father, but as a loner she has to learn team spirit. Guillaume is a competitor with heart and soul, but his greatest struggle is to balance family, work and passion. Antoine has been through drug withdrawal: high time to prove to the world what he is capable of!
In 2019, 1.2 million people stepped off a cruise ship into the small, south-east Alaskan town of Ketchikan. The next year, in 2020, zero did. After decades of diligent work building a sleepy fishing, mining, and logging town into one of the most sought after cruise destinations in the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed Ketchikan into an empty shell—lined with restaurants, shops, and attractions for the visitors who no longer come. Now, the town must find a way to survive without its key economy until the day arrives when cruise visitors once again pour into its docks.
With his industry on lockdown and no end in sight, Toronto chef Luke Donato tries to keep his culinary passion alive during the COVID-19 pandemic - even if it means teaching a group of misfits online.
A child who just loved to skate from the age of eight, Poppy Starr Olsen became the number one female bowl skater in Australia at 14 and went on to take out bronze at the XGames at 17 - the ultimate competition in the world of skateboarding. The same year, skateboarding was announced as an official additional sport category at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Now faced with the opportunity to represent Australia on the world stage Poppy grapples with the transition from skater to athlete and the pressure of competition mounts in a way it has never done before.
On January 23, 2020, the Chinese authority imposed a lockdown in Wuhan, as well as other cities in the Hubei province, in an attempt to prevent the Corona-virus from spreading further across the nation.