Life, customs and the fight for survival in the desolate wastelands of the Venezuelan plains.
Social & External
Music documentary about Billo Frómeta by director Rafael Marziano Tinoco from Venezuela.
A father films the daily efforts and struggle of his son to do his homework. Completing the school tasks is an agony that oppresses the creative passion of a restless, imaginative boy. His father gets deeply involved so he can understand what the problem is, and spends an hour every day to help him with his homework. Days, weeks, years go by, and we observe how the eagerness to learn clashes with the ghost of school dropout. The endearing relationship between father and son, a real rollercoaster of emotions, reveals with a sense of humour the contradictions in the French education system.
The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.
Three centuries of Venezuela's history as a Spanish colony are considered from economic, political and social standpoints; evocations of the past are compared to the present. Based on the ideas and research of Federico Brito Figueroa, Alfredo A. Alfonso, Miguel A. Saignes, Josefina Jordan, and Thaelman Urgelles among others.
A modern team of explorers venture to the legendary "Lost World"- the remote jungle plateau of Roraima in Venezuela. Cut off from time and the jungle below, feared by natives because of "evil spirits", flying reptiles and other beasts, Roraima has sparked human imagination since the time of the 19th century explorers. Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle based his book "The Lost World" (1912) about men and dinosaurs on the tales from early explorers to this plateau. This was the inspiration for Jurassic Park. The modern expedition team encounters the animals, people and extreme habitat on its route across the Gran Sabana and up the 9000 ft. mountain. Once there they explore a new cave system, that may well contain new forms of life.
One day in a kindergarten classroom at Van Horne Public School in Montreal. The teacher encourages children to turn their curiosity into questions and organizes group activities and play periods.
What does it mean to belong to a place, a country? In a south Tel Aviv elementary school, that question is addressed head-on by a fourth-grade class and their teacher. The children are asylum seekers whose families mostly do not have a legal status in Israel, yet learn, sing and play in Hebrew all the while examining their identity and sense of belonging.
In the Makarenko public elementary school in the Paris outskirts, children want to learn and to be cheered while teachers know they do not only teach, they also educate. With care, tenacity and efforts, children are trained to become not only responsible citizens but also human beings.
Two decades ago, Venezuela's power trio Dermis Tatú released their only album, "La violó, la mató y la picó" ("Raped her, killed her and cut her"). The band was an offspring from the separation of Sentimiento Muerto, and was formed by Carlos "Cayayo" Troconis (voice and guitar), Héctor Castillo (bass) and Sebastián Araujo (drums). The record is still considered by many as the most influential in the Venezuelan rock scene. Twenty years later, Castillo and Araujo remember the stories behind the recording, as a group of the current generation of Venezuelan rockers, not only explain its influence and impact, but also play all the songs from the album, making them their own.
Cartoneras is a documentary that grapples with Latin America’s urban realities, and the cardboard publishing movement that has emerged from these in the 21st century. Reflecting on the different contexts that propelled this form of community publishing, like Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, the independent art scene, and the movements which formed around waste-pickers, the film’s narrative is developed through conversations with important actors from the cartonera world.
The last two surviving members of the Piripkura people, a nomadic tribe in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, struggle to maintain their indigenous way of life amidst the region's massive deforestation. Living deep in the rainforest, Pakyî and Tamandua live off the land relying on a machete, an ax, and a torch lit in 1998.
A whimsical blend of live action and animation, "Saludos Amigos" is a colorful kaleidoscope of art, adventure and music set to a toe-tapping samba beat. From high Andes peaks and Argentina's pampas to the sights and sounds of Rio de Janeiro, your international traveling companions are none other than those famous funny friends, Donald Duck and Goofy. They keep things lively as Donald encounters a stubborn llama and "El Gaucho" Goofy tries on the cowboy way of life....South American-style.
The purpose of Rise Above the Mark, narrated by Peter Coyote, is to educate the general public about the “corporate takeover” of Indiana public schools and what parents, community members and educators can do to protect their local public schools. Legislators are calling the shots and putting public schools in an ever-shrinking box. WLCSC Board of School Trustees and Superintendent of Schools, Rocky Killion, want to secure resources and legislative relief necessary to achieve the school district’s mission of creating a world-class educational system for all children. The school district’s strategic plan will introduce a model of education that puts decision making back into the hands of local communities and public school teachers, rather than leaving it in the hands of legislators and ultimately lining the pockets of corporations.
A documentary about a teacher who sends a group of pupils out of the classroom when one of them does not own up to talking behind the master's back.
Young scholars get busy for Newcastle-on-Tyne's 'Education Week' in the tour of Tyneside classrooms.
A semi-dramatized documentary about the first Slovak grammar school in Revúca.
This episode from the Czech Journal series examines how a military spirit is slowly returning to our society. Attempts to renew military training or compulsory military service and in general to prepare the nation for the next big war go hand in hand with society’s fear of the Russians, the Muslims, or whatever other “enemies”. This observational flight over the machine gun nest of Czech militarism becomes a grotesque, unsettling military parade. It can be considered not only to be a message about how easily people allow themselves to be manipulated into a state of paranoia by the media, but also a warning against the possibility that extremism will become a part of the regular school curriculum.
Images of Argentinian companies and factories in the first light of day, seen from the inside of a car, while the director reads out documents in voiceover that reveals the collusion of the same concerns in the military dictatorship’s terror.
Renowned filmmaker John Wilson travels to Africa to direct a new movie, but constantly leaves to hunt elephants and other game, to the dismay of his cast and crew. He eventually becomes obsessed with hunting down and killing one specific elephant.
In the seaside town of Boulogne, no one seems to be able to cope with their past, least of all Hélène, an antique furniture saleswoman, her stepson Bernard, and her former lover Alphonse.
Professor Van Helsing had been asked to help against the tyranny of skeletal creatures that are responsible for terror and death amongst the peasants in rural China. He is the only person qualified to deal with the cause of these phenomena, for the undead are controlled by the most diabolical force of all.... Count Dracula. But he is not alone- to aid him comes a mystical brotherhood of seven martial arts warriors.
Friends battle former U.S. presidents when they come back from the dead as zombies on the Fourth of July.
Using every known means of transportation, several savants from the Geographic Society undertake a journey through the Alps to the Sun which finishes under the sea.
Hüseyin Al Baldawi arrives in Brussels in August 2015. He has traveled thousands of kilometers until he got there from Iraq. A year after his arrival, he receives his residence permit and decides to go to Greece. This journey from Brussels to Athens involves the viewers on the difficulties faced by Hüseyin and thousands of other immigrants. While the story of Hüseyin is taking shape through the countries he travels, the forgotten people he meets and the selfish society of Europe give us many messages, as well.
After the earthquake of Guilan, a film director and his son travel to the devastated area to search for the actors from the movie the director made there a few years previously. In their search, they see how people who have lost everything in the earthquake still have hope and try to live life to the fullest.
A British spy is banished to Panama after having an affair with an ambassador's mistress. Once there he makes connection with a local tailor with a nefarious past and connections to all of the top political and gangster figures in Panama. The tailor also has a wife, who works for the Panamanian president and a huge debt. The mission is to learn what the President intends to do with the Canal.
A group of rock-music-loving students, with the help of the Ramones, take over their school to combat its newly installed oppressive administration.
Two Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
Upon waking from the dream of a theater peopled entirely by numerous Buster Keatons, a lowly stage hand causes havoc everywhere he works.
In 17th-century Tuscany, a church play is performed for the benefit of young aristocrat Cosimo. In the play, a grotesque old woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. The child's older sister is quick to exploit the situation, selling blessings from the baby, and even claiming she's the true mother by virgin birth. However, when she attempts to seduce the bishop's son, the Church exacts a terrible revenge.
A blind witness and a runaway help the police find the suspect in a hit and run until the culprit realizes that they are close on his trail. The killer tracks her down and Soo-ah realizes that in order to save Gi-sub she would have to risk her life.
A short documentary, done by John Marsh and Kelly Curtis, explores Curtis’ relationship to the Halloween franchise. Called “The Night She Came Home”, this featurette follows her as she attends a HorrorHound sponsored signing in 2012 meant to raise money for charity.
On her first day at work, Areum replaces a woman who broke up with the boss. The wife of the boss finds a love note, bursts into the office, and mistakes Areum for the other woman.
A violent screenwriter and a female neighbor fall in love after she clears him of murder, but she begins to have second thoughts.
A man is mistaken as a spy by the CIA when he arrives at the airport with one red shoe.
Struggling comic Lance Barton knows what it's like to die on stage. But when his life takes an unexpected turn - straight to heaven - Lance is sure there's been a mistake. Miraculously, he's right! An angel tells Lance he was taken prematurely but assures him he can be returned to Earth - in the aged body of a ruthless white billionaire. In this improbable reincarnation, Lance begins a hilarious quest to realize his showbiz dream...and, along the way, discovers the person he never imagined he could be.
A man tries to uncover an unconventional psychologist's therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife, while a series of brutal attacks committed by a brood of mutant children coincides with the husband's investigation.
A woman with psychic powers has a vision of a murder that took place in a house owned by her husband.
