The filmmaker's journey to understand the controversial French philosopher and activist Simone Weil (1909-1943) reveals a brave young woman willing to die for her convictions.
2012-03-23
5.5
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.
Straight from the front lines in Iraq, THE WAR TAPES is the first war movie filmed by soldiers themselves. These soldiers bypassed Pentagon supervised media to share their experience like never before. Funnier, spicier, and more gut wrenching than news reports, this is Operation Iraqi Freedom as filmed by Sergeant Steve Pink, Sergeant Zack Bazzi and Specialist Mike Moriarty. Steve is a wisecracking carpenter who aspires to be a writer. Zack is a Lebanese-American university student who loves to travel and is fluent in Arabic. Mike is a father who seeks honor and redemption. Each leaves a woman behind - a girlfriend, a mother and a wife. Through their candid footage, these men open their hearts and take us on an unforgettable journey, capturing camaraderie and humor along with the brutal and terrifying experiences they face. These soldiers got the story that 2,700 embedded reporters never could.
McLibel is a documentary film directed by Franny Armstrong for Spanner Films about the McLibel case. The film was first completed, as a 52 minute television version, in 1997, after the conclusion of the original McLibel trial. It was then re-edited to 85 minute feature length in 2005, after the McLibel defendants took their case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most women never spoke of their experience to anyone, due largely to the shame attached to rape in German culture at that time.
A chronological look at films by, for, or about gays and lesbians in the United States, from 1947 to 2005, Kenneth Anger's "Fireworks" to "Brokeback Mountain". Talking heads, anchored by critic and scholar B. Ruby Rich, are interspersed with an advancing timeline and with clips from two dozen films. The narrative groups the pictures around various firsts, movements, and triumphs: experimental films, indie films, sex on screen, outlaw culture and bad guys, lesbian lovers, films about AIDS and dying, emergence of romantic comedy, transgender films, films about diversity and various cultures, documentaries and then mainstream Hollywood drama. What might come next?
The armies of Fascist Italy conquered Addis Ababa, capital of Abyssinia, in May 1936, thus culminating the African colonial adventure of the ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini, by then lord of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia; a bloody and tragic story told through the naive drawings of Pietro Dall'Igna, an Italian schoolboy born in 1925.
This is the story of Val and Clare: a mother and a daughter. After the tragic death of her eldest daughter, Val left her kids and family behind and escaped into the Colombian jungle in order to search for her identity. Clare was only 11 years old when her mother left and couldn't understand what she was looking for. A son who became an addict, three break-ups and a fractured family remained behind. Now Clare is pregnant and decides to confront her mother, heal the wounds of the past and try to define motherhood on her own terms. Together they go on an intimate journey exploring the boundaries between responsibility and freedom, the power of love and the meaning of family.
The film follows the story of Jamie, a struggling butch lesbian actress who gets cast as a man in a film. The main plot is a romantic comedy between Jamie's male alter-ego, "Male Jamie," and Jill, a heterosexual woman on set. The film's subplots include Jamie's bisexual roommate Lola and her cat actor Howard, Lola's abrasive butch German girlfriend Andi, and Jamie's gay Asian friend David.
The story of a Serer village in the groundnut basin of Senegal. Using the words of their ancestors passed on by oral folklore, the villagers trace the history of their village and their difficulties in working their land and living off their produce. Fad'jal is an extraordinary boundary defying film that interweaves ethnographic footage, intimate observation of everyday village life and fictionalised historical scenes. With it, Faye carefully encourages the viewers to reflect both on African history and storytelling, and on the intersection of fiction and documentary.
DEEP WATER is the stunning true story of the fateful voyage of Donald Crowhurst, an amateur yachtsman who enters the most daring nautical challenge ever – the very first solo, non-stop, round-the-world boat race.
Shot by a reported “1,001 Syrians” according to the filmmakers, SILVERED WATER, SYRIA SELF-PORTRAIT impressionistically documents the destruction and atrocities of the civil war through a combination of eye-witness accounts shot on mobile phones and posted to the internet, and footage shot by Bedirxan during the siege of Homs. Bedirxan, an elementary school teacher in Homs, had contacted Mohammed online to ask him what he would film, if he was there. Mohammed, working in forced exile in Paris, is tormented by feelings of cowardice as he witnesses the horrors from afar, and the self-reflexive film also chronicles how he is haunted in his dreams by a Syrian boy once shot to death for snatching his camera on the street.
Every Wednesday at noon, women who were kidnapped for sexual purpose by the Japanese army during its imperialism and their supporters demonstrate against Japanese government to request official apology and indemnity for their crimes. This documentary portrays sexually abused old women's suppressed story of overcoming of their shame and forced silence.
When confronted with their lingerie factory (Starissima) going bankrupt, the employees attempt to take it over by forming a cooperative. Soon questions about fundamental economic and social issues pop up amidst the bras and panties. Through this adventure together they discover a new freedom.
Year after year, just after the monsoon season has finished, thousands of families travel to a bleak desert in Gujerat, India, where they will stay for an endless eight months and extract salt from the earth, using the same painstaking, manual techniques as generations before them. Director Farida Pacha spent a season with one of these families, observing the very particular rhythms of their lives.
Through previously undiscovered private letters, photos and diaries that were found in the Himmler family house in 1945, the "The Decent One" exposes a unique and at times uncomfortable access to the life and mind of the merciless "Architect of the Final Solution" Heinrich Himmler.
The film analyzes the efforts by the families of 9/11 victims to create the 9/11 Commission and what information was revealed by it in the 9/11 Commission Report.
A survivor of the Rwandan Genocide struggles to forgive the man who killed her children. A victim’s daughter strikes up an unusual friendship with the ex-IRA bomber who killed her father. And two men—one Israeli, one Palestinian—form a bond after tragedies claim their daughters.
The film brings us under the skin and into the mind of La Chana, a talented Gypsy flamenco dancer as she returns to the stage to give a final seated performance after a 30-year break. Along the way, La Chana reveals the secret behind her disappearance when she was at the peak of her career.
Portrait of a private coal company in East Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district in 1988/89. The feisty woman boss runs the business with humour and understanding. Her seven male employees respect her. To the outside world, they are all tough guys, but as they describe their jobs and personal situations, above and beyond the hard manual labour, their vulnerability starts to come to light.
Filmed over the course of two years, Our City Dreams is the story of a woman's struggles and successes as an artist in New York City. Told through five women artists, from youngest to oldest, the film features Swoon, Ghada Amer, Kiki Smith, Marina Abramovic, and Nancy Spero. From the studio to the streets of New York, from the canals of Venice to the alleys of Cairo and the beaches of Phuket, Our City Dreams takes us deep into the artists' worlds.
Deep within the hidden chambers of an ancient Egyptian pyramid, a shocking discovery is made: the mummified remains of an alien shark. Guarding this creature is a vengeful mystic who brings the beast back to life, unleashing it upon a group of unsuspecting researchers.
After a conflict with his boss, a newspaper editor dives deep into the festering streets of Manhattan to find a way out of this toxic newspaper game.
Various introductions corners, card games, quizes, 'Making Of', and concert 'Backstage Footage'.
Intertwining stories of inmates and ex-inmates through the complex labyrinths of freedom. Wretched, desolate and doomed men, who try to expiate their sins and piece together the lives they used to lead.
Kevin is annoyed that he has to spend his afternoon teaching his Grandma how to use the World Wide Web, so he decides to leave it to herself to learn. However, with only a few instructions left by her Grandson, Grandma accidentally deletes the Internet. While Grandma sits quietly at home with no knowledge of what she has done, chaos and destruction begin to arise as many struggle to come to grips with their current offline status, including an online gamer in France, a pretentious Canadian Internet expert, a high tempered American President trying to find the source of the problem, and many more from around the world.
Two years after leaving prison, Cadu sets out to fight corruption and pursue a political career, but dangerous ties to the past haunt him.
This documentary features some of Europe's most stunning species, like the European adder, the nose-horned viper, the dice snake, the ringed snake and the Aesculapian snake.
Chicago literary agent, Anne Harper, vacations to a remote cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. While there, a disgruntled writer is waiting in the shadows to seek his revenge.
Reclusive middle-aged male nurse Mauro may be in over his head when -- to save his hospital job -- he agrees to accompany 10-year-old illegal immigrant Eddi to meet his adoptive parents at the Swiss border. Along for the ride is a laconic small-time mobster named Rollo, and problems soon ensue in the form of car trouble, a Bulgarian hooker and her pimps.
The movie, and true story, is about how Harold began working for the garbage industry in New Jersey only to find out that it was run by the Mafia. Having been in and out of jail most of his life, Harold feared more jail time and so went to the FBI. Harold went undercover to get as much illegal information that he could. The information he got helped put away dozens of Mafia men. Harold is currently in the witness protection program.
"Black Ghost" is a crime/thriller set in modern day Perth, Australia. Following the life of an ex-commando living in a city that is controlled by criminals; The Northside Crew, The Reapers and The Regittis. Because he is a thug for hire, he becomes an outsider as he makes his living carrying out contracts for the highest bidder. Although he is a muscle for hire he made himself a promise to stop killing. He accepts a contract from the daughter of a prominent couple who have been murdered. Black Ghost must embark on a game of cat and mouse to find the killer or killers and complete his contract. The question is, will he break his golden rule and kill to find the answers?
The first gaze. The italian who invented cinema. The story of the incredible and little-known life of the pioneer of Italian cinema, Filoteo Alberini. The reconstruction of the incredible life of the Italian pioneer, Filoteo Alberini, becomes the occasion for a reflection on the birth of Italian cinema and, more generally, on the Seventh Art and its nature as the "magnificent obsession". A journey in the company of an exceptional storyteller, guardian par excellence of cinema's forgotten ones, Georges Méliès, who conducts an investigation of this figure, practically unknown in our present day.
Left to die in the desert by his wife and her lover, a businessman fights to survive and get his revenge.
In a groundbreaking project developed by MISCELLANEOUS Productions, a group of multi-barriered youth collaborated with a team of professional artists on POWER, an evening of solo performance pieces, ensemble drumming and dance numbers, all of which take a raw, honest look at the things that matter to youth in the community: power, racism, immigration, poverty, violence, sexism, addiction and love, presented at Vancouver’s Rhizome Café. This documentary focuses on four young artists -- Roberto, Natasha, Dakota, and Michael -- showing their struggles and their transformation through performance.
Blondine, the daughter of a poor fisherman, marries the Prince of the Mountain. Brune, her sister, envies Blondine her happiness and tells her that a secret lies hidden in her husband's name. Blondine tries to discover it but, before she does, the Prince is imprisoned by an ogre. Blondine must face goblins, imps, and the water djinni before she can deliver her captive Prince.