In the last 10 years, the landscape of the pharmaceutical industry has changed. A handful of multinationals control the manufacture of most of the drugs.
Social & External
The people behind it
Extraordinary behind-the-scenes access reveals a drug company's fevered race to develop the first FDA-approved Viagra for women - and offers a humorous but sobering look inside the cash-fueled pharmaceutical industry.
Spin doctors spread misinformation and confusion among American citizens to delay progress on such important issues as global climate change.
The leading consumers of medicines on the planet, are the French really sicker than the rest of humanity? Or are there other explanations for this bulimia? By mixing in-depth interviews and plasticine animations, this documentary takes viewers on a journey through the drug. Materialized by the setting of a town, Pharmacy, this walk goes through all the stages. From clinical trials to marketing, from therapeutic evaluation to price setting, from marketing hype to the side effects suffered - at the end of the chain - by patients, public authorities and the pharmaceutical industry are questioned without question. detours on their responsibilities.
Psychotropic drugs. It’s the story of big money-drugs that fuel a $330 billion psychiatric industry, without a single cure. The cost in human terms is even greater-these drugs now kill an estimated 42,000 people every year. And the death count keeps rising. Containing more than 175 interviews with lawyers, mental health experts, the families of victims and the survivors themselves, this riveting documentary rips the mask off psychotropic drugging and exposes a brutal but well-entrenched money-making machine. Before these drugs were introduced in the market, people who had these conditions would not have been given any drugs at all. So it is the branding of a disease and it is the branding of a drug for a treatment of a disease that did not exist before the industry made the disease.
Microsoft is generally considered the dinosaur of the digital age. However, the US Corporation is more powerful today than ever before. The power of its monopoly is nowhere more apparent than in Europe: from Finland to Portugal, from Ireland to Greece, the information technology of every state administration and its institutions (military, police, fiscal authorities etc.) is based on Microsoft programmes. Since digital systems are constantly expanding and increasing in importance, countries are becoming more and more dependent on this single company. This dependence causes continually rising costs and prevents technical progress in state authorities. It systematically undermines European procurement and competition laws, it leads inevitably to the company having an overwhelming political influence, while it exposes state IT systems along with citizens’ data to a high technical and political security risk. Is Europe’s digital sovereignty at stake?
Every year many new drugs come to market which offer hope to the sick and dying. This documentary film investigates just how far drug companies are prepared to go to get their drugs approved, what they will do to make sure they get the prices they want, and what happens when profits are put before people.
25 years ago, Viagra kickstarted the second sexual revolution and a controversy unlike any drug before it. Following trials in 1992 for a compound believed to alleviate symptoms for angina, Pfizer’s first in-patient trial for the drug, then known as UK92480, begin in Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales. It isn’t long before volunteer patients report having unexpected erections - fast forward ten years and word of the adverse side effect has travelled from Wales to New York resulting in Viagra’s first release in 1998 with orders soon exceeding predictions. What follows is the big story of the little blue pill.
Life is about choice. What we eat, what we read, who we elect; every day we make choices that determine how we want to live. But what if these choices are just an illusion? In an era where regulations and red tape rule every industry, where lobby groups and big businesses wield more influence than ever before, our daily choices have become increasingly limited. And with all our options so deliberately handpicked, are we really making a choice at all? Freedom From Choice examines the current state of life and personal choice today. Experts from many different fields offer a frank and startling look at the hidden limitations in our daily lives. Focusing on key areas such as food, medicine, finance, and media, Freedom From Choice provides viewers with a glimpse at the myriad of ways their lives are being dictated and tells us who stands to gain.
In America, size matters. The bigger you are, the more power you have, especially in the business world. Anat Baron takes you on a no holds barred exploration of the U.S. beer industry that ultimately reveals the truth behind the label of your favorite beer. Told from an insider’s perspective, the film goes behind the scenes of the daily battles and all out wars that dominate the industry.
Narrator and director Michael Schaap's confessional style and general goofiness bring levity to an awkward topic: "erectile dysfunction" and the little blue pill that treats it.
Shot over the course of 18 months in New York City's Lower East Side, METHADONIA sheds light on the inherent flaws of legal methadone treatments for heroin addiction by profiling eight addicts, in various stages of recovery and relapse, who attend the New York Center for Addiction Treatment Services (NYCATS).
Switzerland is the only country in the world that allows foreigners to come and die on its territory. Since its founding in 1998, more than a thousand people have traveled to Zurich to end their lives with the help of the organization Dignitas. "Dignitas - Death on Prescription" is a documentary about an organization that provides people with terminal and incurable illnesses, intense unrelenting pain, and depression with a peaceful death. The organization's founder, lawyer Ludwig Minelli, is often the target of insults, especially from politicians, despite the fact that most Swiss citizens support the option of medically assisted suicide.
One of the most powerful video documentaries of our time boldly reveals the modern medical-industrial complex’s dire descent into utter corruption. HIV/AID$ - A deadly and dangerous DECEPTION! This feature-length expose explains exactly how the 300-Billion-dollar AID$ fraud began, why HIV can NOT be the cause of AIDS, what the real causes could be, and who manipulates the public’s good intentions while poisoning hundreds of thousands with toxic drugs that cause the very disease they are supposed to prevent.
One in five Americans is taking a psychiatric drug, including millions of children. Pharmaceutical companies have over-hyped the benefits of these drugs, while hiding the risks and severe side effects including physiological dependence. "Medicating Normal" explores what happens when for- profit medicine intersects with human beings in distress.
30,000 people die in the US each year by firearms. Collateral damage of an undeclared civil war, from which the arms industry has benefited for decades under German and European participation. Starting from the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, this documentary examines why we can't stop the arms madness.
The film exposes the links between Agrifood and politics. With a pool of international experts it analyses the many problems related to factory farming: water pollution, migrants exploitation, biodiversity loss and antibiotic resistance.
Bikes vs Cars depicts a global crisis that we all deep down know we need to talk about: Climate, earth's resources, cities where the entire surface is consumed by the car. An ever-growing, dirty, noisy traffic chaos. The bike is a great tool for change, but the powerful interests who gain from the private car invest billions each year on lobbying and advertising to protect their business. In the film we meet activists and thinkers who are fighting for better cities, who refuse to stop riding despite the increasing number killed in traffic.
Americans consume 75% of the world’s prescription drugs. After losing his own brother to the growing epidemic of prescription drug abuse, documentarian Chris Bell sets out to demystify this insidious addiction. Bell’s examination into the motives of big pharma and doctors in this ever-growing market leads him to meet with experts on the nature of addiction, survivors with first-hand accounts of their struggle, and whistleblowers who testify to the dollar-driven aims of pharmaceutical corporations. Ultimately his investigation will point back to where it all began: his own front door.
A spoof on the movie “Clueless” – follows high-school queen Crystal through the worst day of her young, pampered life. It seems that everything in her life derived from oil has disappeared: her makeup, Daddy’s credit card, gasoline for her beloved BMW and aspirin for her growing stress headache — all gone. But with a little guidance from Miss Watkins, her “extremely cool science teacher,” Crystal gets a better understanding of where oil comes from, how it is processed and how the products made from oil impact our everyday lives.
In the past 40 years, the War on Drugs has accounted for 45 million arrests, made America the world's largest jailer, and destroyed impoverished communities at home and abroad. Yet drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available today than ever. Where did we go wrong?
Cast members of the hit Netflix show join the hosts to unpack the drama of Season 1, and Cristela Alonzo offers tips for being the new kid at school.
Deep Web gives the inside story of one of the most important and riveting digital crime sagas of the century -- the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht, the 30-year-old entrepreneur convicted of being 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' creator and operator of online black market Silk Road. As the only film with exclusive access to the Ulbricht family, Deep Web explores how the brightest minds and thought leaders behind the Deep Web and Bitcoin are now caught in the crosshairs of the battle for control of a future inextricably linked to technology, with our digital rights hanging in the balance.
An intimate conversation between filmmakers, chronicling De Palma’s 55-year career, his life, and his filmmaking process, with revealing anecdotes and, of course, a wealth of film clips.
In candid conversations with actor Jonah Hill, leading psychiatrist Phil Stutz explores his early life experiences and unique, visual model of therapy.
Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.
Ranjit, a farmer in India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the victim of a brutal gang rape. His decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.
Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.
The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
Documentary about the art of film editing. Clips are shown from many groundbreaking films with innovative editing styles.
A story of two coalitions – ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) – whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time.
With a magical new invention that promised to revolutionize blood testing, Elizabeth Holmes became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, heralded as the next Steve Jobs. Then, overnight, her 10-billion-dollar company dissolved. The rise and fall of Theranos is a window into the psychology of fraud.
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now 84, and still inspired by the lawyers who defended free speech during the Red Scare, Ginsburg refuses to relinquish her passionate duty, steadily fighting for equal rights for all citizens under the law. Through intimate interviews and unprecedented access to Ginsburg’s life outside the court, RBG tells the electric story of Ginsburg’s consuming love affairs with both the Constitution and her beloved husband Marty—and of a life’s work that led her to become an icon of justice in the highest court in the land.
Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.
