Ebony Goddess: Queen of Ilê Aiyê follows three women competing to be the carnival queen of Ilê Aiyê, a prominent and controversial Afro-Brazilian group with an all-black membership. The selection is based on Afro-centric notions of beauty, in counterpoint to prevailing standards of beauty in Brazil, a country famous for slim supermodels and plastic surgery. Contestants for the title of Ebony Goddess dress in flowing African-style garments, gracefully performing traditional Afro-Brazilian dances to songs praising the beauty of black women.
Festive Land examines one of the largest and most extraordinary popular celebrations in the world, the week-long Carnival that brings more than two million people to the streets of Salvador, the capital of Bahia, in northeastern Brazil. Carnival is the most expressive showcase of the unique cultural richness of Bahia, where African culture has survived, prospered, and evolved, mixing with other Brazilian influences to create forms found nowhere else in the world. The film captures this unique cultural energy through extraordinary footage of musical performances, dances, religious manifestations, and street celebrations. At the same time, Carnival reflects the racial and social tensions of Brazil's heterogeneous society. At first glance there appear to be two million people chaotically mixed on the streets, but a more detailed look reveals how patterns of segregation driven by racial, social and economic differences continue in Carnival.
The execution was scheduled and the last meal consumed. The coolness of the poisons entering the blood system slowed the heart rate and sent him on the way to Judgement. He had paid for his crime with years on Death Row waiting for this moment and now he would pay for them again as the judgment continued..
Ann Dexter, daughter of an itinerant Haiti waterfront character, Carl Dexter, brings a golden idol, which her father her stolen at a voodoo ceremony, to Bill Buchanan, who is known along the waterfront as a man eternally on a treasure hunt. He agrees to let Ann accompany him in search of the treasure after a native he befriended gives him directions and certain voodoo secret charms. They follow an underwater passage to an island where they find a Pagan tribe. They learn that the golden idol is a burial symbol representing the dead and that hundreds of idols are at the bottom of the sacred burial lake.
Two male best friends have their relationship tested when it turns out that one is in love with the other.
The Secret Service abducts a "rocket scientist" to better protect him against gangsters acting for Chinese agents.
Freeform is the first student film by artist Jacob Sizemore. The narrative follows a woman in a mask as she longs to be free. The video is set to the musical piece Reach by Jeremy Levin.
A young prostitute, Gullan Svan, is murdered one night. The police suspects that the murderer is a student, since she had a lot of students as customers. The murderer stole a picture of Gullan after he killed her, a picture which later is found in a rented tuxedo when the tuxedo is returned. Four students decide to solve the case, but it seems that the truth is even closer than they first suspected... Plot by Mattias Thuresson
Milly Cohen lives in modest circumstances with her grandmother Cathy and her little brother Kevin. After the death of her parents, she gave up her art studies and works for the antiques dealer Philip Barnes, a handsome but uncouth bachelor. Philip only realizes that Milly has become the pearl of the store when she quits - due to her boss's unfriendliness and her brother's serious illness. Philip doesn't get on well with the new assistants. He realizes that he has fallen in love with Milly. When he tries to win her back, Milly has already accepted her old boyfriend's proposal of marriage.
A female eye doctor and a male film director run into each other on the airplane to Milan. The two were lovers in the past, and are now in their middle ages. After their chance encounter in Torino, they travel around Tuscany together, appreciating the works of Caravaggio. They begin to notice they are hiding their own wounds from each other. In Korea, he goes to her eye clinic, and they confess love to each other for the first time. In the end, they go their separate ways.
A glimpse of life as seen through young people at a Zimbabwean children's home.
Lin is a plain-clothes cop in the crime-riddled district of Mongkok who bungles a vice operation directed at mainland prostitues. He falls for a ditsy hooker who tells him the love of her life is a killer who once svaed her life in a shootout.
Romana fancies a proper holiday and convinces the Doctor to visit the leisure planet Argolis, where a takeover by the Argolins' historic enemy is underway.
Traces of a body draw a camera across a landscape of stone and walls.
Aubri Callahan is an aspiring comedian and ghost writer for Bella Delmonico, acclaimed stand up comic and owner of the Vista Theater. Performing at the Vista is a key step on the way to stardom and despite her natural talent, Aubri patiently waits for her time to shine, writing jokes for Bella in the shadows of the comedic giants that came before her. When The Vista Theater Variety Show lands in Aubri’s lap she must plan the whole event and find a headliner all before Christmas eve, just three weeks away.
Filmed live during Black Sabbath's 1999 "Reunion" tour, this historic concert features the original lineup of the legendary metal band
Ydessa Hendeles' exhibition entitled "The living and the Artificial" (consisting of works of art all comprising a photograph of living persons in the company of one or several teddy bears) had puzzled Agnès Varda so much that she decided to go to Toronto where the artist lives and interview her. In front of Agnes Varda's DV camera, Ydessa tells about the singularity of her artistic approach. She also expresses herself about the Holocaust, which both her parents survived.
A Suitable Girl follows three young women in India struggling to maintain their identities and follow their dreams amid intense pressure to get married. The film examines the women's complex relationship with marriage, family, and society.
One of the most important events in Brazilian history, the Búzios Revolt of 1798 was led by dozens of black men who rose up to overthrow the colonial government, proclaim independence and establish a democratic Republic, free from slavery. The boldness of these men called on the people to make the Revolution and the conspiracy spread to the city of Bahia. The seizure of power is near. But the movement is denounced, the government sets up a Devassa against hundreds of people and four of them are hanged and quartered.
"O Mar de Antônio Peregrino" tells the fascinating story of the pilgrim Antonio Conselheiro and the village of Canudos. In a region feared by its long droughts, thousands of outcast peasants and Indians came together to build a country utopia. The city has been wiped off the map three times but refuses to die. The film is a journey in search of the people and dreams of Canudos. Guided by Antônio Conselheiro's famous phrase “The drought will turn into the sea, and the sea will turn into the drought”, the film goes through the drought and the flood to meet a warm and strong people who never surrendered, cherished with the music of hope and missing.
Jimi Hendrix's debut American set at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival is generally considered one of the most radical and legendary live shows ever. Virtually unknown to American audiences at the time, even though he was already an established entity in the UK, Hendrix and his two-piece Experience explode on stage, ripping through blues classics "Rock Me Baby" and Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor," interpreting and electrifying Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," debuting songs from his yet-to-be-released first album and closing with the now historic sacrificing/burning of his guitar during an unhinged version of "Wild Thing" that even its writer Chip Taylor would never have imagined. Hendrix uses feedback and distortion to enhance the songs in whisper-to-scream intensity, blazing territory that had not been previously explored with as much soul-frazzled power.
A young working class Baltimore man spends 10 years on a single portrait, believing it is his means to fame and fortune. But he also believes that only one man can lead him there---the famous artist David Hockney. What happens when you finally meet the god of your own making?
The Kitades run a butcher shop in Kaizuka City outside Osaka, raising and slaughtering cattle to sell the meat in their store. The seventh generation of their family's business, they are descendants of the buraku people, a social minority held over from the caste system abolished in the 19th century that is still subject to discrimination. As the Kitades are forced to make the difficult decision to shut down their slaughterhouse, the question posed by the film is whether doing this will also result in the deconstruction of the prejudices imposed on them. Though primarily documenting the process of their work with meticulous detail, Aya Hanabusa also touches on the Kitades' participation in the buraku liberation movement. Hanabusa's heartfelt portrait expands from the story of an old-fashioned family business competing with corporate supermarkets, toward a subtle and sophisticated critique of social exclusion and the persistence of ancient prejudices.
Crazy cat lady or world-class musician? You decide. Dorian Rence smashes our notions of what matters and who counts in "Feral Love." Dorian was the seventh woman to join the New York Philharmonic. In her 40-year career she has performed with all the greats: Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Zubin Mehta, Yo Yo Ma to name a few. And she cares for a feral cat colony in the tunnels of New York City.
With moving stories from a range of characters from her Kahnawake Reserve, Mohawk filmmaker, Tracey Deer, reveals the divisive legacy of more than a hundred years of discriminatory and sexist government policy to expose the lingering "blood quantum" ideals, snobby attitudes and outright racism that threaten to destroy the fabric of her community.
Kicking It chronicles the lives of seven players taking a once in a lifetime opportunity to represent their country at the Cape Town 2006 Homeless World Cup. Najib from war torn Afghanistan; Alex from the slums of Kenya; Damien and Simon from the drug rehab clinics of Dublin, Ireland; Craig from the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina; Jesus from the overflowing public shelters of Madrid, Spain,
Essie Coffey gives the children lessons on Aboriginal culture. She speaks of the importance of teaching these kids about their traditions. Aboriginal kids are forgetting about their Aboriginal heritage because they are being taught white culture instead.
New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots.
In search of the lucrative matsutake mushroom, two former soldiers discover the means to gradually heal their wounds of war. Roger, a self-described 'fall-down drunk' and sniper in Vietnam, and Kouy, a Cambodian refugee who fought the Khmer Rouge, bonded in the bustling tent-city known as Mushroom Camp, which pops up each autumn in the Oregon woods. Their friendship became an adoptive family; according to a Cambodian custom, if you lose your family like Kouy, you must rebuilt it anew. Now, however, this new family could be lost. Roger's health is declining and trauma flashbacks rack his mind; Kouy gently aids his family before the snow falls and the hunting season ends, signaling his time to leave.
Legendary Canadian documentarian Alanis Obomsawin digs into the tangled history of Treaty 9 — the infamous 1905 agreement wherein First Nations communities relinquished sovereignty over their traditional territories — to reveal the deceptions and distortions which the document has been subjected to by successive governments seeking to deprive Canada’s First Peoples of their lands.
"The Most Dangerous Man in America" is the story of what happens when a former Pentagon insider, armed only with his conscience, steadfast determination, and a file cabinet full of classified documents, decides to challenge an "imperial" presidency – answerable to neither Congress, the press, nor the people – in order to help end the Vietnam War.
An epic cinematic and musical collaboration between SHERPA filmmaker Jennifer Peedom and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, that explores humankind's fascination with high places.
Kua and Teriki will soon get married. They live on the distant Tureia island in the French Polynesia, Pacific Ocean and have just been told that something is wrong with their son Maokis heart. It is a consequence of living only 100 km away from the island of Moruroa, where France has tested 193 atom bombs for 30 years. Several of their family members are sick and Moruroa can soon collapse, which can lead to a tsunami likely to drown all of them. Vive La France is a personal and intimate story about harvesting the consequences of the French atomic program.
From both local and global perspectives, this documentary examines the harsh realities behind the mounting water crisis. Learn how politics, pollution and human rights are intertwined in this important issue that affects every being on Earth. With water drying up around the world and the future of human lives at stake, the film urges a call to arms before more of our most precious natural resource evaporates.
Birth: it's a miracle. A rite of passage. A natural part of life. But more than anything, birth is a business. Compelled to find answers after a disappointing birth experience with her first child, actress Ricki Lake recruits filmmaker Abby Epstein to explore the maternity care system in America