Social & External
Edeltraut Hertel - a midwife caught between two worlds. She has been working as a midwife in a small village near Chemnitz for almost 20 years, supporting expectant mothers before, during and after the birth of their offspring. However, working as a midwife brings with it social problems such as a decline in birth rates and migration from the provinces. Competition for babies between birthing centers has become fierce, particularly in financial terms. Obstetrics in Tanzania, Africa, Edeltraud's second place of work, is completely different. Here, the midwife not only delivers babies, she also trains successors, carries out educational and development work and struggles with the country's cultural and social problems.
Thomas Haemmerli is about to celebrate his fortieth birthday when he learns of his mother's death. A further shock follows when he and his brother Erik discover her apartment, which is filthy and full to bursting with junk. It takes the brothers an entire month to clean out the place. Among the chaos, they find films going back to the 1930s, photos and other memorabilia.
Herlinda Augustin is a Shipibo healer who lives with her family in Peruvian Amazonia. Will she and other healers be able to maintain their ancient tradition despite Western encroachment?
The story about how Britt-Marie took back the brush factory from her husband’s cruel brother at the end of the fifties was one of Malin’s childhood fairy tales. Britt-Marie is now 95 years old and trying to set the story straight with the help of her daughter behind the camera. Together they outline a powerful life story that is slowly fading away.
A creative documentary about becoming a parent... and how to reconceive yourself. Fiction director Josh Appignanesi turns the camera on himself and his wife as they undergo the ordeal of becoming parents in the era of man-children and assisted reproduction. Faced with fatherhood, Josh spirals comically into an envious career funk. But life-threatening complications emerge- the couple are tested to the brink, confronting shattering losses. It's a portrait of our generation going through a revolution in reproduction- forced to find new ways to think about ourselves as creative beings. We hear from Slavoj Žižek, John Berger, Darian Leader (20,000 Days) and Zadie Smith. Universal yet still taboo, it's a film for everyone who has children, wants them, or still feels like a child themselves.
What are one week films? They're an assignment we do our first week back at CalArts, designed to dust off cobwebs by throwing us straight into the deep end. Our class theme was "square," and we had a lot of fun playing around with compositions inspired by East Asian graphic design.
NOVA is reopening one of the most confounding crime mysteries of all time as a team of expert investigators employs state-of-the-art forensic and behavioral science techniques in an effort to determine what really happened to Charles Lindbergh's baby... and why.
Famous and talented feature film director and scriptwriter Jan Kounen plunges the viewer into a unique and thrilling adventure of pregnancy, birth, and baby’s first swim, alongside marine creatures. Leina Sato is a Japanese professional free diver and is expecting her first child. Her partner, Jean-Marie Ghislain is a famous underwater photographer. They share a passion for the oceans, and believe that a strong bond between a mother-to-be and cetaceans exists. And they want to prove it. Leina will be multiplying her encounters with whales, dolphins and other underwater mammals. Mother Ocean is the incredible encounter between humans and under water species, around the universal question of giving birth and the power of creating life.
This silent film from 1948 "The Creation of Life" briefly demonstrates how a fetus forms and graphically shows different types of births. It was made by Sherwood Picture Corp., and may have been sold both to schools and professional organizations for medical education, and to the public for shock value. (Several similar birth films were sold in this era through home catalogs and photography shops.) Summary: By means of diagrams, conceptions and pregnancy are explained. Views of various methods of delivery are shown. Created by: T. Marc Sherwood
Think you know your baby? Think again. This beautifully shot, heart-warming and scientifically revealing film, narrated by Martin Clunes, brings you babies as you've never seen them before. The first two years of our lives are the most critical of all. We grow more, learn more, move more and even fight more than at any other time in our life. We have to master the complex skills of walking, talking and relating to the world around us. But we are not yet built like an adult. We have more bones in our body at birth than an adult does, yet we don't have kneecaps. We laugh 300 times a day as a baby, but in the first few months we can't produce tears when we're upset. Secret Life of Babies reveals all these facts and more, telling incredible stories of babies' resilience and survival skills to boot.
The stories of a group of Latina migrant mothers whose kids have been taken away by an unfair system in Italy.
"My mother is spending all her time with her dying father. I’m spending all my time filming her. As the end is getting closer, my mother and I start doing the filming more and more together. It becomes our way of dealing with the time we have left." —Marius Dybwad Brandrud
Australian filmmaker Sophia Turkiewicz investigates why her Polish mother abandoned her and uncovers the truth behind her mother's wartime escape from a Siberian gulag, leaving Sophia to confront her own capacity for forgiveness.
Gangstresses, a documentary by Harry Davis, tells the story of violence, poverty, and survival in the streets from a female perspective. Over a two-year period, Davis interviews female hustlers, drug dealers, rappers, porn stars, prostitutes, mothers, and daughters. Among them are Champagne, a well-known African American porn star who has a small child; Mama Mayhem, a street hustler; Uneek, a rapper from the Bronx; and Vanessa Del Rio, a famous porn actress. Musicians Lil' Kim, Mary J. Blige, Ice T, and Tupac Shakur also share personal stories of survival. The documentary conducts follow-up research on the women's complicated lives, offering glimpses of both tragic reality and hopeful recovery.
Enter the world of undisturbed birth as 11 couples share their intimate personal journeys, facing their fears and moving through pain into the ecstasy of birth. Orgasmic Birth poses the ultimate challenge to our cultural myths.
The film follows the life of a large family over three decades and generations. The rising saga of a formerly homeless family survived since the mid-seventies solely thanks to the mother's figure, the strength and bond of this "Mama General". Following her motto, "one for all - all for one," she keeps the family together and tied. And yet, it is no longer like before. One force is noticeably weakening. Mama General is dying...
The Rastreadoras de El Fuerte are a group of mothers of disappeared persons in northern Sinaloa who, in the absence of the authorities, twice a week go out with picks and shovels in search of the remains of their children; a testimony of the abandonment of the State, the aggressions of the drug traffickers, the indifference of society and the pain, but also of the strength and courage that keep these women together, and of their empowerment to mobilize society in community organization.
Eva-Maria works as a secretary at a teacher training college. A position she is very proud of. It was not easy to get this job, because she has been dependent on a wheelchair since her childhood due to spastic cerebral palsy. However, Eva-Maria has never let herself be intimidated. She knows what she wants and how to get it. Without compromise, she wants to create the life she has always dreamed of. One of her biggest dreams: a child of her own. With the help of in vitro fertilization, she now wants to fulfil this wish for herself. Supported by her family and accompanied by her assistants, she tackles "the child project". But her situation is unknown territory for everyone. The peculiarities of her body present new and unfamiliar challenges to both medicine and her assistants. Documented by one of her assistants, this film provides an unusually intimate insight into a life beyond conventional family planning.
Featuring experts in their fields and raw and moving footage, this documentary makes a case for increased autonomy in women's choices for childbirth.
A father, a mother and a baby are sitting at a table, on a patio outside. Dad is feeding Baby her lunch, while Mum is serving tea.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
An astonishing journey revealing the awesome power of the natural world. Over the course of one single day, we track the sun from the highest mountains to the remotest islands to exotic jungles.
A purely observational non-fiction film that takes viewers into the ethically murky world of end-of-life decision making in a public hospital.
A documentary about the making of season five of the acclaimed AMC series Breaking Bad.
Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.
A documentary on why 'Money Heist' sparked a wave of enthusiasm around the world for a lovable group of thieves and their professor.
A behind the scenes look into George Romero's groundbreaking horror classic Night of the Living Dead.
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier—iconic actor, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry, and more.
One Life captures unprecedented and beautiful sequences of animal behaviour guaranteed to bring you closer to nature than ever before, as well as a second disc packed full of never before seen extras including an exclusive making of featurette narrated by Daniel Craig.
A documentary on legendary movie-poster artist Drew Struzan.
Diaries, audiotapes, videotapes and testimonials from friends and colleagues offer insight into the life and career of Gilda Radner -- the beloved comic and actress who became an icon on Saturday Night Live.
Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, written and directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.
Join the likes of Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Florence Pugh, and Vincent D’Onofrio as they reveal how Marvel Studios’ “Hawkeye” was conceived and created. Witness firsthand what it took to pull off the show’s pulse-pounding action set pieces, and discover how iconic characters from the pages of Marvel Comics such as Kate Bishop were adapted and brought to life for the six-episode series.
Carefully picked scenes of nature and civilization are viewed at high speed using time-lapse cinematography in an effort to demonstrate the history of various regions.
A filmmaker who grew up alongside Chucky the killer doll seeks out the other families surrounding the Child's Play films as they recount their experiences working on the ongoing franchise and what it means to be a part of the, "Chucky" family.
A candid look at rehearsal footage in support of a focus on pre-viz.
A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.
An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.
