Social & External
A fascinating compilation tracing the development of British trains throughout the 20th century. This program provides a record of the greatest days of steam; the magnificent express engines developed by the 'Big Four' - the GWR, SR, LNER, and LMS; many famous named trains like the Golden Arrow and the Brighton Belle, the War and Nationalism; and the amazing variety of elder locos from the 1950's.
Shot during three seasons, Kenuajuak's documentary tenderly portrays village life and the elements that forge the character of his people: their history, the great open spaces and their unflagging humour. Though Kenuajuak appreciates the amenities of southern civilization that have made their way north, he remains attached to the traditional way of life and the land: its vast tundra, the sea teeming with Arctic char, the sky full of Canada geese. My Village in Nunavik is an unsentimental film by a young Inuk who is open to the outside world but clearly loves his village. With subtitles.
Every American who has listened to the radio knows Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." The music of the folk singer/songwriter has been recorded by everyone from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to U2. Originally blowing out of the Dust Bowl in Depression-era America, he blended vernacular, rural music and populism to give voice to millions of downtrodden citizens. Guthrie's music was politically leftist, uniquely patriotic and always inspirational.
The early struggles of the working class are placed under a microscope in Plutocracy III: Class War, the latest chapter in an exceptionally well produced series which explores the origins of America's growing economic divide.
As Australian cinema broke through to international audiences in the 1970s through respected art house films like Peter Weir's "Picnic At Hanging Rock," a new underground of low-budget exploitation filmmakers were turning out considerably less highbrow fare. Documentary filmmaker Mark Hartley explores this unbridled era of sex and violence, complete with clips from some of the scene's most outrageous flicks and interviews with the renegade filmmakers themselves.
In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed ceramics workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act - the take - has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head. Armed only with slingshots and an abiding faith in shop-floor democracy, the workers face off against the bosses, bankers and a whole system that sees their beloved factories as nothing more than scrap metal for sale.
Documentary about the lost 1914 film "Sperduti nel buio". Film historian Denis Lotto journeys across Europe following the trail of the lost movie.
In China, there exists an astonishing place. A burial ground to rival Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, where pyramid tombs of stupendous size are full of astonishing riches. In 221 BC, China's first Emperor united warring kingdoms into a nation that still exists today. To memorialise this achievement, he bankrupted the national treasury and oppressed thousands of workers to build one of the world’s biggest mortuary complexes. China's second dynasty, the Han, inherited the daunting challenge of building larger tombs to command respect and establish their right to rule without running the nation into the ground. Although no Han emperor's tomb has been opened, the tombs of lesser Han aristocrats have revealed astonishing things: complete underground palaces (including kitchens and toilets) and at least one corpse so amazingly well-preserved some believe Han tomb-builders knew how to "engineer immortality".
The NFL has staged 48 Super Bowls. Four photographers have taken pictures at every one of them. In KEEPERS OF THE STREAK, director Neil Leifer tells the story of this exclusive club, made up of John Biever, Walter Iooss, Mickey Palmer and Tony Tomsic. With their cameras, they have captured football's biggest game of the year for almost five decades.
Is the solution to Switzerland's future to integrate Germany into the confederation? After all, like Michael Ringier, CEO of the Ringier media group, says, blithely ignoring all minorities, we're very close in culture and language. Oskar Freysinger takes out his guitar and sings his answer. Politicians from French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino think expanding will help the country survive. The former German foreign minister thinks the two countries' traditions are too different. The banker Oswald Grübel is worried about Germany's debts, although he'd be prepared to take over its assets. With serious interviews interspersed with gags (boat people on Lake Constance, the last Habsburger as a peasant), Giaccobbo gathers off-the-cuff reactions which reveal a lot about the different mentalities. The movie laughs at preconceived notions, redefines neutrality and reflects on what designates a nation. Switzerland, which loves to teach the world a lesson, will soon helvetize the planet, oder?
This World War II documentary rests on an unusual thesis: it argues that, in the wake of Pearl Harbor, the actions precipitated by the U.S.A.F. that truly helped turn the tide were perpetrated not by the widely-ballyhooed U.S.N. aviators or aircraft carriers, but by the American submarines - silent warriors beneath the deceptively placid ocean surface. The subs, after all, were responsible for gravely wounding Japan's industry, all but destroying the Japanese merchant fleet, and therefore preventing reinforcement of Japanese military garrisons. In relaying this story, the program draws on a series of interviews with military veterans, and endless archival footage of naval battles that chronologically tells the gripping story of the Pacific Front of the war.
Margherita Sarfatti, Mussolini's lover and advisor, was a woman who exerted a great influence on the Duce and on Italian cultural life. Through archival documents, autobiographical texts and love letters, the documentary paints a portrait of the woman who helped create the myth of the Duce.
The film shines a light onto federal chancellor Angela Merkel and her now ending 16-year-long tenure. An era, not an episode. And a vagarious relationship history between the chancellor and the Germans. Who has changed whom here?
The Institute of National Remembrance, Fish Ladder and Juice present “The Unconquered” – an animated film that shows the fight of Poles for freedom, from the first day of World War II to the fall of communism in 1989.
In the early 70s Greek cinema entered in a period of crisis. One of its aspects was said "crisis of issues" and one of the exits heard in the name "erotic cinema". The genre was already acquaintance from the abundance of foreigner films, that was distributed in the grindhouses under the "adults only" motto and its Greek version had a lot of variants.
To mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Janina Ramirez tells the story of three books that defined this radical religious revolution in England.
Who has not dreamed of embracing the city of Paris from the sky? Fly and explore the exceptional places that have shaped and are shaping the history of Paris: Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame de Paris, the Louvre, the Bastille, Invalides, the Opera ... Far from the clichés of postcards out of marked routes by travel guides, this new film invites viewers to an exceptional private tour of the city of Paris. Travel through the centuries and be witnesses of the birth of the City Lights. This new production reveals one of the most influential capitals in the world as you've never seen.
Visual representation of Manuel Azaña's 1938 speech "Paz, piedad y perdón" from a new generation's point of view.
We Remember Marilyn. Marilyn Monroe transforms from Norma Jean, a cuddly teenager, into the most recognizable face and body in the world in these home movies, photos and film clips which span her early bit parts to her most known roles.
This is the story of a tiny country that made a decision to do something that no other country had ever done -- it decided to abolish its army and declare peace to the world. And this is the story of a young boy who grew up in that country, and how he ended up challenging -- and sometimes even convincing -- the greatest powers in the world to follow Costa Rica's example. "Oscar Arias: Without a Shot Fired" is a Don Quixote-like saga with great historical touchstones -- Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, Cold War politics and Communism, Central American War and Peace. It follows a slight, academic, and most unlikely hero over the course of more than fifty years, as he travels the world in a quest to stop the spread of the weapons of war. In the end, it is a story about the triumph of reason, of the sparrow triumphing over the eagle, and how the impossible dream can sometimes come true.
