Shangri-La (2023) journeys through Mongolia from an intercultural perspective, reflecting on tradition, modernity, and the tension between indigenous and Western belief systems. As filmmakers from industrialized nations — Germany and South Korea — we critically examine our own positions as outsiders, questioning the ways in which histories, environments, and ways of knowing are perceived and represented.
Shangri-La (2023) journeys through Mongolia from an intercultural perspective, reflecting on tradition, modernity, and the tension between indigenous and Western belief systems. As filmmakers from industrialized nations — Germany and South Korea — we critically examine our own positions as outsiders, questioning the ways in which histories, environments, and ways of knowing are perceived and represented.
2023-11-17
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Paris to Pittsburgh brings to life the impassioned efforts of individuals who are battling the most severe threats of climate change in their own backyards. Set against the national debate over the United States' energy future - and the Trump administration's explosive decision to exit the Paris Climate Agreement - the film captures what's at stake for communities around the country and the inspiring ways Americans are responding.
When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
A decade after An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change into the heart of popular culture comes the riveting and rousing follow-up that shows just how close we are to a real energy revolution. Vice President Al Gore continues his tireless fight, traveling around the world training an army of climate champions and influencing international climate policy. Cameras follow him behind the scenes—in moments private and public, funny and poignant—as he pursues the empowering notion that while the stakes have never been higher, the perils of climate change can be overcome with human ingenuity and passion.
Harmful chemicals are disproportionately affecting Black communities in Southern Louisiana along the Mississippi River. I am One of the People is an experimental short film exposing the environmental racism of “Cancer Alley.”
"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...
The Smog of the Sea chronicles a 1-week journey through the remote waters of the Sargasso Sea. Marine scientist Marcus Eriksen invited onboard an unusual crew to help him study the sea: renowned surfers Keith & Dan Malloy, musician Jack Johnson, spearfisher woman Kimi Werner, and bodysurfer Mark Cunningham become citizen scientists on a mission to assess the fate of plastics in the world’s oceans. After years of hearing about the famous “garbage patches” in the ocean’s gyres, the crew is stunned to learn that the patches are a myth: the waters stretching to the horizon are clear blue, with no islands of trash in sight. But as the crew sieves the water and sorts through their haul, a more disturbing reality sets in: a fog of microplastics permeates the world’s oceans, trillions of nearly invisible plastic shards making their way up the marine food chain. You can clean up a garbage patch, but how do you stop a fog?
An animated documentary chronicling famed paranormal investigator Harry Price’s research at Borley Rectory, renowned as the ‘most haunted house in England’.
Documentary account of a man’s life in the face of imminent death – Francisco Varela's story told affectionately and gently, touchingly and astutely. Varela spent his life building bridges: between Western science and Eastern wisdom, neurobiology and philosophy, abstract theory and practical life. This film seeks to deconstructs the prevailing division between science and art.
"Go Further" explores the idea that the single individual is the key to large-scale transformational change. The film follows actor Woody Harrelson as he takes a small group of friends on a bio-fueled bus-ride down the Pacific Coast Highway. Their goal? To show the people they encounter that there are viable alternatives.
In 2010 David Crowley, an Iraq veteran, aspiring filmmaker and charismatic up-and-coming voice in fringe politics, began production on his film Gray State. Set in a dystopian near-future where civil liberties are trampled by an unrestrained federal government, the film’s crowd funded trailer was enthusiastically received by the burgeoning online community of libertarians, Tea Party activists and members of the nascent alt-right. In January of 2015, Crowley was found dead with his family in their suburban Minnesota home. Their shocking deaths quickly become a cause célèbre for conspiracy theorists who speculate that Crowley was assassinated by a shadowy government concerned about a film and filmmaker that was getting too close to the truth about their aims.
One of the most important Kentuckians of the 20th century, Harry Caudill brought the story of Appalachia to national attention when his book “Night Comes to the Cumberlands” was released in 1963. The nonfiction account of Eastern Kentucky’s coal region, part history and part polemic, eloquently recounted the exploitation of Appalachia’s land and its people by business and government interests, and made Caudill a national spokesperson for his homeland. Harry Caudill spent his life advocating for Eastern Kentucky, with the aim of helping the powerless as well as securing the region’s unmatched natural resources for future generations. His work led to lasting government reforms for Appalachia, and his legacy remains a touchstone for activists today.
A mockumentary about four people and their idiosyncratic ways of saving the planet.
Eighth-generation Tasmanian and environmentalist Oliver Cassidy embarks on a life-changing solo rafting trip down the beautiful yet remote Franklin River. His goal is to retrace his late father’s 14-day expedition to attend the blockade that helped save the World-Heritage listed national park from being destroyed by a huge hydroelectric dam project in the early 1980s.
Bright Green Lies investigates the change in focus of the mainstream environmental movement, from its original concern with protecting nature, to its current obsession with powering an unsustainable way of life. The film exposes the lies behind the notion that solar, wind, hydro, biomass, or green consumerism will save the planet. Tackling the most pressing issues of our time will require us to look beyond the mainstream technological solutions and ask deeper questions about what needs to change.
Two worlds beautifully collide as Dr. Cornel West (Class of 1943 Professor at Princeton University and acclaimed author and speaker) and His Holiness Radhanath Swami (Bhakti Yoga master, director of the Radha-Gopinath Ashram, and acclaimed author and speaker) sit down together and share their thoughts on the Divine, the mysteries of love, and the role that spirituality plays in activism.
I enjoy religion, I appreciate belief systems and how they offer structure to people's lives. I also appreciate how spirituality manifests itself in Asian cultures as this almost earthbound presence guiding people through every day life and when they need an extra bit of help they need only ask whichever deity holds dominion over their desire. Here is an experimental film I made with videos from my iPhone. Shot across Taiwan and South Korea. An experimental film I made with videos from my iPhone. Shot across Taiwan and Korea. My aim was to explore success in how it pertains to every day life, the satisfaction of small moments, spirituality, superstition, and daily rituals.
An old, broken morin khurr (horse head fiddle) compels renowned Mongolian singer Urna Chahar Tugchi to take a road journey to Ulan Bator and the steppes of Mongolia.
Humanity’s ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, “A Short History Of Progress” inspired “Surviving Progress”, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by “progress traps”—alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world’s resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn’t an evolutionary dead-end.
Explores the lives of seven Black Millennials – Atheist, Buddhist, Christians, Muslim, Ifa, and Spiritualist – and the challenges and discoveries with faith and spirituality.