Shortly after his death in 2008, Maldoror made this film about her longtime friend and collaborator, the Négritude poet Aimé Césaire. In this film, she retraces the steps of Césaire’s travels across the globe — particularly back to his hometown in Martinique, where Maldoror interviews his relatives about his life — and her working relationship with Césaire, including fragments of her previous films about him, Un homme, une terre (1976) and Le masque des mots (1987).
The Unreserved is an inquiry into the lives of passengers who use the Unreserved Compartment, the cheapest way to travel across India on the Indian Railways system. The film portrays the passengers’ aspirations, efforts and opinions through conversations and personal stories.
Maya, la tigresse du Maharashtra
To the city come men, women, fruits, flowers, vegetables, goats and sheep – all ready for consumption. It is the process of consumption/exploitation that forms the core of the film.
In a poetic hour and a half, director Mani Kaul looks at the ancient art of making pottery from a wide variety of perspectives.
"The Karma Killings," is a modern-day crime thriller mixed in with Indian mythology and class warfare. The documentary delves into India's most infamous serial killings and its impact on a nation. Told through the people directly involved, the film unravels the complexities of the case and goes beyond the sensational headlines to present a suspenseful and scary mystery. And has a huge twist - one of the killers maybe innocent?
A stunning trek from the vale of Kashmir, via Sind Valley and Kargil and Lamayaru Monastry.
Filmmaker Herbert Alfonso and musician Glenn de Randamie travel to Ghana to do some research on polyrhythm and the West-African spirituality. However, their trip to The Motherland makes them realize that home is more than the place where they grew up. Years later, they recollect their faded memories and try to find the right words to describe their intense experience. What exactly made them feel at home and lost at the same time? What does being home actually mean for a black individual from Europe while visiting Africa? Only abstractions seem to persevere as this colourful and musically-charged collage serves to show how a life-changing experience can leave us with nothing but fragments of a truth that has yet to be discovered.
The world knows the image of the good Canadian. But what if there was a dark secret behind a national identity? THE GOOD CANADIAN exposes the truth behind the idea of a True North strong and free. In this unflinching and eye-opening documentary, directors Leena Minifie and David Paperny move us through the corridors of systemic inequity, from the Indian Act to residential schools, to modern-day family separation. Fusing shocking footage with detailed interviews with experts, advocates, whistleblowers and politicians, THE GOOD CANADIAN challenges national myth-making, while offering Canadians the chance to forge a new identity from the truth.
"The Search for the Meaning" is a collective experience, carried out with the audiovisual contribution of countless people who record their testimonies and spiritual experiences in 19 countries, to show a new spirituality that is being born...
Short documentary on classical Indian music.
During social and political turmoil, what is the manifestation of divine intervention? How do the gods and goddesses act in the volatility of the contemporary world? If they walk on earth as men and women, how do they endure the chaos of modernity? Centering on the terrible and majestic incarnations of Goddess Kali and her celestial avatars, this film is a metaphysical contemplation in times of perpetual emergencies. Avikunthak’s remarkable sense of forms finds expression in the extraordinary combination of performance and essayistic cinematic practices.
Over a dozen students at this school in Quebec were radicalised. To tackle the issue, a pilot project was launched to heal divides within the student body. It's a hybrid cultural model, made up of the many cultures of its students.
In this short documentary, a Musqueam elder rediscovers his Native language and traditions in the city of Vancouver, in the vicinity of which the Musqueam people have lived for thousands of years. Writing the Land captures the ever-changing nature of a modern city - the glass and steel towers cut against the sky, grass, trees and a sudden flash of birds in flight and the enduring power of language to shape perception and create memory.
Documentary on the construction of Chandigarh, the new capital of the Indian Punjab region, planned by Albert Mayer and Swiss architect Le Corbusier.
Kekaiulu Hula Studio follows the Proclaimed Hula Halau of the same name, showcasing their twist on what the real reason for hula is and what life as a dancer in the halau is really like. Something previously unseen in the public eye.
yaya/ayat explores identities, being lost in translation and distance. But at its core it's about the filmmaker longing for a relationship with her geographically distant grandma and her journey to Greece to find her. This is an experimental documentary about how being a part of any diaspora shapes a person's identity.
A Calling to Care is the inspiring story of 55 year-old Grace Stanley, a Canadian nurse who left her home and prestigious career behind to answer a calling halfway around the world in Karachi, Pakistan. Teaching nursing to local women in a strict Muslim culture that forbids them to even to touch men is a formidable task. However, Grace challenges her own values and belief systems to find common ground with her students, helping them to excel and feel respect for themselves in a culture that doesn't respect them. Whether it is getting her hands painted with henna, swimming fully-clothed in the ocean, or marching bravely with them on International Women's Day, Grace bonds with her students in a very special way, and ultimately discovers how the West can learn a lot more from the Third World than she ever thought.
The incredible house of Pierre Loti (1850-1923) in Rochefort will reopen to the public in June 2025. This is an opportunity to look back on the romantic life of one of the most widely read and translated authors of his time. The writer-officer, who joined the navy at the age of 17, traveled around the world as his assignments took him. Through his literary work, he built a sensitive memory of the diversity of cultures at the turn of the 20th century, questioning the major geopolitical upheavals of his time. The film draws heavily on Loti's own words, combined with a collection of rare archives from the period.
In an open letter to the most influential modern Indian political leader, the Late Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the filmmaker sequentially narrates the stories of three distinct individuals - that of a confused filmmaker who flows with time, a dedicated social reformer who guides the stratified masses into social upliftment and a divisive and regressive politician. The juxtaposition of their disfigured trajectories provokes a pertinent question: Did Gandhi ever foresee the dehumanized shape that his legacy has now dangerously morphed into?